The Forest
by Manuuk7
Summary: T'Pol's disappeared and Vulcan rebels are wrecking havoc. The rebels and their hostages encounter Orion slave traders and end up sold on the planet where T'Pol is. Back on Enterprise, T'Pol has problems with Starfleet and gets a letter from her father. She flees with the rebels to Romulan space and Trip tries to stop her. Will they be able to complete the mission?
1. The Forest 1 - Prologue

_Another AU story. This one is planned to be pretty straightforward, not the major arc that the last one was. Hope you enjoy._

 _xx_

 _As usual, other than the characters I make up (who belong to me, I think) Star Trek and its characters belong to the corporations that last purchased all of their rights. I am borrowing them and will return them as soon as I'm done._

 _xx_

The hunters advanced on her hunt partner, helmet lights shining on her. Taking opportunity of their distracted focus, she swiftly emerged from her hiding place, running silently up and around the slope to put as much distance as she could between her and them. She knew that when they were done with their prey they would come looking for her. She dove towards the shadows, quickly rolling over and over on the ground in a desperate attempt to escape the halos of light of their helmets. Her rush towards safety was interrupted by a hard but yielding object. She silenced her cry as she smacked against it, realized it was big enough that she could hide behind it, a massive tree trunk lying flat on the ground. Scrambling on hands and knees, she rounded the trunk, plowing through the pile of grass and leaves at its extremity, uncovering the hollow in the trunk. She quickly felt to confirm it was wide enough for her or she was small enough to fit in, it was an academic difference. Hastily she slid in, legs first, careful to pull the leaves and grass back behind her in a haphazard mass that would not give her away, then wiggling in as far as she could.

She heard her hunt partner scream, then coming from a distance the voices of the hunters, another scream, someone laughed, they were talking between themselves. The sound of steps made her try and shrink away. The steps kept coming closer, aimed straight at her. The trunk was tight around her as she tried to quiet her breathing, tense from the run and the knowledge she was lying out in the open inside a slim wooden sheath. She knew they couldn't hear her, but there was the everpresent risk that one in the party would sense her, in spite of the cultural hatred that made such sensing a deathly taboo. She needed to enter a trance. It would round out her brainwaves and hide them from detection. The quasi-meditative state was hard to achieve, she found herself grasping futilely at the logical construct that should have been second nature. But finally she managed to self-soothe and the world ceased to exist other than as peripheral information that wouldn't draw a reaction. The trance kept her still, would keep her still until they left, even when the hunters gathered around the trunk, finding it was a comfortable seat and would be a ready-found couch for a bivouac.

There were five hunters, five voices that she would grow to differentiate as the night grew deep and dark, and silent, and then turned into another day. One of the voices was younger, its timbre higher. The universal translator sewn into her collar was still working, both a blessing for she was able to learn where they would hunt next and a curse, for all she heard that she'd rather not. One man laughed, there was the shuffling on heavy boots as he told the party "I don't know about you, but I didn't think we'd catch her until morning, right?" Heavy laughter was the only reply, the shuffling boots walked away, and a couple of minutes later she heard her hunt partner scream. Heavy steps shuffled back into hearing range, and another voice, another pair of boots, got up and moved away. Minutes ticked by, and then the screams again. There was nothing she could do. There was nothing to be done. Interrupting the trance meant being found, and being found would waste one more life. She wouldn't prevail against five hunters.

The sordid dance of boots and screams went on. There was nothing to do but wait. She waited. Finally only three men were still seating on the trunk, their voices right above her head. They shuffled away. Silence fell. The night was deep. She debated breaking the trance and sneaking out. But military-inspired hunting men might have a sentinel on guard while the men were sleeping. The risk was too high. She waited. Her hair was in her eyes. Of course, it had been over a month already. First, weeks of captivity in the alien ship, not knowing where she was, then the arrival in a compound with hundreds of others, most of them sleek-looking aliens like her hunt partner, a few other aliens like her. And all of sudden the start of the hunt. Hunters and hunted were alike, a single species split by genetic happenstance into telepaths and non-telepaths. The scientist in her rued the primitive short-sightedness of a civilization unable to appreciate that this was a normal genetic variation, that culling all the carriers would never prevent its re-emergence in every tenth new birth. She had met her hunt partner early on, both intent on survival, and they had decided to join forces to reach I'Hy'Iuvh, the land of safety. Her hunt partner described it as a forest of some kind. So impenetrable one could could never come out. A refuge that wasn't. It reminded her of Hamlan, the forest at the end of the world. She couldn't pronounce I'Hy'Iuvh and it couldn't be Hamlan, therefore she called it by the closest foreign name, The Forest.

They were very close to the Forest, she could have seen it if it were light. There was the trunk in which she was hiding, a couple of hundred yards of rock and wallows, then a gold meadow of tall grass, and a mile or two away, the Forest. Her hunt partner must have triggered some sort of sensor when she forged ahead blindly on what she hoped would be the last leg of their run. But she herself had hung back, wary of the traps they had already avoided. That had played in her favor. While her hunt partner fell into the neatly laid snare, she had been able to escape, though her reprieve would be short-lived. The hunters tipped the scales in their favor, with cameras, sensors, lighting helmets, and air-and-ground craft. But no hunting animals.  
She didn't know what happened to those who were caught. Capture was not foremost on the minds of the hunters, especially in the first few days. That had changed as the hunted grew scarcer. There had been no time to talk about such things with her hunt partner, each of them singly intent on surviving another day, another round, and reaching The Forest. The place that they would be given best if they reached. And that they could never leave.

The rustle of sounds rose from the camp, announcing the start of a new day. She heard her hunt partner shriek again. Then heavy boots shuffled back within range, coming very close, too close. They kicked the tree. Her body prevented it from sounding hollow. Heavy boots must have assumed the tree had recently fallen. She sensed more than felt the weight of the man who wore them suddenly plopping himself on the trunk. He started speaking. A higher voice answered and came closer, the two voices soon interlacing in a dialogue. Father-son? There was the sound of other boots walking away, followed by more screams. A voice rang in the chill of the morning. "Now she'll make a good pleasure slave." It was answered by a round of brutish laughter. A wave of anger and fury raised within her, spurring her to burst through the trunk and do away with them all. The cooling waters of logic were nowhere to be found. The trance prevented the active suppression of emotion, instead holding back the anger and revulsion and delaying the synaptic response. Any feelings would have to be worked through when she arose. In the meantime, the weight of the trance thankfully kept her still.

The deeper voice was talking, the universal translator catching each word as it fell from above. "You know the funny thing?" it was saying. "The hunted, they see I'Hy'Iuvh, they see the meadow, and they figure they're going to go through the sides, through the trees and bushes alongside, right? Because they can hide in there and not be found, right? What they don't know is that's where the sensors are. There are no sensors in the meadow. What's the point? Nobody takes the direct route. But if they were to just take a run, there's a good hundred yard, hundred-fifty yards band, all the way through the middle of the meadow, where there are no sensors." He laughed at the irony, followed by a younger-voiced chuckle.

The deeper voice receded as the man got to his feet. "All right, men, we've got a good one. Let's go and get her tagged."

"There was another one with her." Another deep voice answered.

The first voice sounded again. "We'll have plenty of time once that one trips the sensors. They always do. Especially in this stretch, they're all over." That triggered chuckles all around. There was more shuffling, the sounds of a camp being packed, heavy boots climbing on board a vessel of some kind, the sound of an engine, its whine disappearing in the distance, and then, slowly, silence.

T'Pol turned on her back inside the trunk, breaking the trance. Her eyes were wide open. She knew how to get to the Forest.

The question was when. She had no idea what time it was, but the hunters would have woken up early, with the dawn. Counting the two hours to decamp, the sun would be across the morning sky. The hunters would be back at dusk lest a tripped sensor alerted them early to a newfound prey, the main camp close enough they could be back in minutes. The prey didn't move during the day, waiting for the shadows of the evening before trying their chance at surviving. If she waited until then, the hunters would already be on the prowl. If she waited until then, the rising shadows would hide potential hazards over which to fall, and to fail. If she waited until then, she would be even more famished, her energy levels compromised from days on the run. Two months before, she could have run the distance across the meadow with breath to spare, head high, hardly feeling the effort. Two months before, when exercise on Enterprise was a regular and required occurrence. She could still run, her confidence was not so high that she could reach The Forest before the hunters reached her. The decision was irrevocable as soon as it was made. She would try during the day.

She carefully looked outside of the trunk, using the leaves and moss as cover, checking that nobody was around. There were no sound to be heard. All the hunters had gone away, secure in the knowledge that their prey would wait until dusk or the sensors would alert them. The sensors. Her eyes narrowed. There were probably too many for all to be avoided. If she triggered the sensors too early, the hunters would already be on the ready, their vehicles still in the air, they would be back before she succeeded. She needed to wait until they had all converged on the main camp, to process captives, handle supplies and equipment, eat and then rest. If surprised during their rest period, the hunters would take more time to get under way, yelling at each other in the chaos of crafts and bodies, more time for her to run unchallenged. Any second gained would be measured in yards of freedom.

The rest of the day was spent in meditation, clearing her mind of emotions. Emotions could cloud the higher cortical functions, lead to the wrong move, a foot out of place, a knee twisting on uneven terrain. She stripped away all memories, everything to do with Enterprise, everything that was her, until all that remained were two miles across a golden meadow. Almost the same color as his hair. She could not be distracted. She stripped away Him. All that was left in the end were two miles of rough ground. And the Forest. The thought fleeted by that she did not know what was in the Forest, that she may be running to safety as easily as to her ruin. The echo of that thought were what actions would be hers if she failed and were caught without the quick release of death. There were many other ways to one's end, especially when one was a Vulcan, and her mind paid scant attention to the matter, there would always be alternatives.

Finally enough time had gone by, the sun was high in the sky, the hunters would be sleeping off the long hours spent on the run and for some the debauchery of the night. She crawled out of the trunk, careful to minimize her movements and delay triggering the sensors. And then she took off, running from the very first step, easily down the two hundred yards or so of rough ground to the grassy meadow, then through the meadow, fighting the tall grass, struggling not to fall, lifting her knees over treacherous clumps of dirt, running as fast as she could manage to, running, running.

She was about midway through when she heard the first distant whine of an engine. She pushed harder, trying to run even faster. She could see the edge of the forest, exhausted, great pants of air insufficient to soothe her burning lungs, her legs turning to wood, pain radiating as she struggled to bring them up, forward, up, forward. She heard yells, the whine of an engine coming nearer, it was getting closer, she had yards to go, they were getting nearer, she had feet to go, they shouted at her behind the report of guns, she dove into the forest, rolling forward as quickly as she could, trying to get in as deep as she could. There was a small depression in the ground. She flattened herself against it, chest heaving, muscles trembling.

Time stood still.  
When the heaving in her chest died down she finally heard the silence. She raised her head ever so slightly, glancing towards the meadow. The engine noise was gone. There were no signs of the hunters. She had made it to the Forest. She sat up, still groggy from the exertion. One danger was gone. Another one rose ahead.  
She let the memories come back to her, everything that she was, everything that happened. She let it sift through her mental fingers, the conflation of events that had led her to this precise place at this precise time.


	2. The Forest 2 - The Tribe

xxx

It had all started with spices.

Enterprise had been exploring a far-flung quadrant of the Ceplephus galaxy, months away from the nearest Federation starbase, when they happened on Qaybos, a Minshara-class planet with advanced interstellar development and a multi-level port crowded with a number of never-encountered before alien species. Captain Archer beamed down with a select team of senior officers and came back on board raving and gushing about the interstellar market that was the reason why so many foreign ships of all origins and sizes were stationed around Qaybos.

She had agreed to go with him in the second shuttle, Trip had stayed aboard, he was using the idle time to reconfigure a recalcitrant cleaning routine, she had promised Chef she would bring back a certain spice that was central to a Denobulan recipe that Chef wanted to surprise the doctor with. None of them had thought much about it, the spice merchant was right down the alley, they were almost finished with their visit, and she had briefly left the group to go pick up the merchandise she had already purchased.

The marketplace was noisy, crowded, bodies and scents all around. T'Pol had been weaving a path through the throng when someone brushed past her and she felt a powerful image at the contact. She chased it automatically out of her mind, taking a sidestep to avoid the alien. That was why Vulcans did not like any unexpected physical contact, lest it be a door on another's feelings and thoughts, unbidden and unauthorized. She did not who it was that brushed past her, other than he or she was covered in loose fitting brown robes. She kept walking towards the spice stall when suddenly rough hands were shoving her into a dark corner, she turned to fight, and then darkness.

She had awakened gagged and bound, her eyes and head covered with some king of apparatus that prevented any sensory input. Isolated in a grey fog without sight, touch or smell, her psi points neutralized, she could not even tell how much time had passed. It could have been days but it had felt like weeks of torture, the sensory isolation touching even the food she ate, until finally they had reached the planet. The sensory intake when they finally took off the helmet had been too much and she had passed out, to wake up in a forbidding compound filled with hundreds of golden-eyed aliens and a few others species, some of which she recognized, such as a couple of Andorians, their eyes blinking in rhythm with their swaying antennae. She had seen their bodies among the first casualties of the hunt, sensory deprivation that was torture to a Vulcan would be deadly to a species as gregarious as the Andorians.

From the I'Shlins in the compound, for she had been told that was the name of their species, she had learned that their culture considered telepathy to be an abomination, and every so often went high and wide in search of the telepaths within them, to be promptly culled in a regularly scheduled hunt. As a scientist, she had quickly probed as to how long the hunt had been taking place, effortlessly deducing from its regular and immemorial holding that telepathic abilities were simply an uncontrolled genetic variation in the I'Shlins. They were killing their own people in a misguided attempt to stave what could not be stopped. The I'Shlin's hatred of anything telepathic extended to anyone else with psionic abilities who happened to cross their path, as she had had the misfortune to do on Qaybos.

xxx

T'Pol slowly took stock of her surroundings, making a mental tally of her state while surveying what she could see of The Forest. The right sleeve of her uniform was in tatters and there was a long bloody scratch running up her clavicle and down her back, from when she and her hunt partner had crawled through a natural culvert to hide from the hunters, forcing her to squeeze through against the jutting root of a tree so that they both could find room inside. She was exhausted. The last sprint to The Forest had used up all her reserves of energy. She needed food and she needed water, but her exhaustion precluded any move in that direction. She would rest first, conserving energy, and she would look for food afterwards.

The question of food brought up the question of whether there were any others in The Forest. How many had survived the hunt over the years? Her hunt partner had categorically affirmed that some, the lucky ones, did and forever after be protected. Was it actually true or was it lore passed from mother to daughter, a carefully perpetrated myth to make the hunt more exciting for the hunters, a commonly shared delusion that kept the hunted going. The hunters had put all their resources and energies towards making sure none of the hunted escaped. She doubted many reached the Forest.

If she were the only one in the Forest, survival would be difficult. She didn't know the indigenous flora and fauna, which food sources were poisonous. If others had survived, she needed to find them. Their chances for survival would only increase with numbers. Her chances of survival. And she needed to survive until Enterprise found her. It was not illogical to hope that Captain Archer, instructed from the Suliban's capture of Klaang, would know to trace the warp trails of the ships around the planet. She looked around at The Forest, an unending mass of tree trunks and low brushes, the type one could easily get lost into until one's bleached bones were happened upon by some inadvertent hunter. Based on her estimate of how many had reached the Forest and how many might still be alive, finding them would be a challenge.

She would rest first. She looked around for a potential shelter but the small depression where she had first found refuge was as good a shelter as she could find. There was no movement over the meadow behind her, only the crushed grasses marking her path. The sun was already setting and dusk would soon be there, and with it another desperate bid to reach The Forest. If the hunted chose the sides of the meadow, they would be signing their own demise. She thought of creating a beacon of some type, some marker that would let them know the path to follow. She was held back by the absence of tools and materials, the lack of time. Perhaps she could serve as a beacon herself, guiding them by voice and sight. It would be dangerous, the hunters would not hold their fire but the diminishing light might make their aim uncertain. She would proceed once dusk had fallen.

But dusk found her asleep, exhaustion surprising her where she laid in wait. Dawn was edging the night when she opened her eyes, recalled to awareness not so much by the rising light but by the presence of others. A half-dozen I'shlins were surrounding her. She could tell by the pelts hanging from their shoulders that those were not part of the recent hunt. That answered the question about whether others were alive in The Forest. She quickly sat up, her motion interrupted by the sharp point of a spear. She gasped as it made contact, sitting back down abruptly while the aliens tasted the air around her. She waited, cross-legged, until they had finished.

Wordlessly, with the prodding of a spear, the aliens prompted her to stand, about the same height, their golden eyes level with hers. They said a few words she could not understand. Mindlessly, her hand went to the universal translator but the sharp jab of a spear stopped her motion. The aliens looked quizzically at the green blood trickling down her uniform. She raised her hand again, palmed outward so they would see there was no threat, and touched her collar. The translator was still there. The last dive out of the meadow must have silenced it forever. It was inconvenient.

The group walked deeper into the forest, prodding her along at spear point. The six I'shlins surrounding seemed an overabundance, she was alone and weakened from the hunt. Perhaps they had been hoping for more.

They had been walking for hours without stop and T'Pol was staggering with each step. She estimated they had covered eight miles of forest terrain. The ground dipped slowly from under her feet and she saw that they had come to a central clearing. There were more I'Shlins roaming around, some children even, what looked like low tents made of tree boughs. The guards pushed her forward on a well beaten path weaving in and around, to a wizened creature sitting on a stump, looking like she was at least three hundred years old, eyes and robe turned to white. T'Pol and the old one stood staring at each other, until the guards roughly shoved T'Pol to her knees. She looked up indignantly before giving in to he fatigue.

The old one stepped off the stump to stand before T'Pol. Stone knife in one hand, she grabbed her neck with the other. A knife was raised high for the kill. The guards locked T'Pol's arms. The old one's hand tingled against her neck. A jolt made her gasp in shock and surprise. Images flashed, the old woman as a young woman, laughing children, the bloody hunt, the forest, faces in the forest, new faces each year, the bridge of Enterprise, its crew, including a certain chief engineer, Vulcan ceremonials, the Forge. The old woman let go of her neck, breaking the telepathic bond and lowered the knife, turning to the assembled tribe. 'She is one of us'. The telepathic message resounded in T'Pol's head. She realized the old woman had not spoken. And she knew her name to be Elderweiss.

The guards let go of her arms and Elderweiss benignly brought T'Pol to her feet. "Come, my child, let you rest and we can talk". She guided her to one of the huts, lifted a bough to uncover the entrance and gestured T'Pol in. A bowl of some kind of liquid or mush was thrust into her hands. It was food and it was drink, and she ate ravenously, what it was contained didn't matter anymore. There was a cot of sort made from more tree boughs. T'Pol would never know if she laid down or passed out and fell on it.


	3. The Forest 3 - The Abduction

_Author's note. The story takes place sometime after Bound, before the series bottoms out into an abysmal ending. TnT are in a relationship but it is not yet a known fact. _

_Also, I really thought this was going to be a straightforward story, with a single plot line. I'm afraid it may get a little bit more complicated than that._

 _xxxxxxxxxxxxx_

Archer shut off the screen on the orders that he had just reviewed, looking fixedly at his desk. He couldn't be angry about it. As captain of Enterprise he had broad leeway about how to lead his mission of exploration and where the ship was headed next, but always within limits. And obviously he had reached those limits with Starfleet. They had finally gotten wise to the fact that the ship had been spending the past six weeks boldly going from one corner of the Ceplephus galaxy to the other... and back, the equivalent of a handkerchief of space. Probably hadn't helped that all of his reports were coming through on the same optical frequency.

Now he had new orders and they were clear. Go in all due haste to Feurata for an official First Contact mission with the Brolains. He picked up the padd on his desk and slammed it back down with irritation. It might have irked him a little less if the first contact mission was a true one, if the Brolains were not already well known aliens and a well-established civilization. This was all a diplomatic farce to initiate their people into the Federation, make it known around space that another planet had opted for membership.

He looked up at the chime of his doorbell. If he thought the past half-hour had been unpleasant, it was nothing compared to the half-hour he was about to have. "Come in," he called and the Enterprise chief engineer stepped in.

Archer felt guilt rip anew at his gut, as he did whenever he saw Trip. When they had come back aboard that day Trip was waiting for them in the shuttle bay, looking positively grey in spite of his blue eyes, as if he knew already that something had happened to T'Pol. Even though Archer hadn't told anyone about it, the only people who knew were with him on the shuttle. Phlox had been unable to explain it either, when he had finally remembered to ask him.

His friend hadn't said a word edgewise, had never berated him. But Archer knew only too well he was the one who had been in charge of the away party, he was the one who had insisted she come down with him to the surface. He knew she had eventually accepted only to appease him, using chef's errand as an excuse, a small token for a very Human crew. It was his command, his orders, his negligence. He knew better than to let any of his crew walk a foreign land alone, he had been lulled into complacency by the fact they had already met up to go back to the ship, this was a side excursion, just her ducking away for a few minutes to get the stuff she had purchased. He had relaxed his vigilance. And he had lost his First Officer. He only had himself to blame for it, and no matter how much he did, it wouldn't bring her back. Sometimes he wished Trip would let loose and yell at him, tell him exactly how much of a screw-up he was. It would be easier than the self-recrimination, because at least there would be an end to it.

But Trip had never said a word to him about it, had gone down for every search and rescue mission until they had exhausted all options, until the collective of the senior officers had accepted the fact that she was gone for good. Even then, they had kept looking, their efforts turned outward to places they might not have been because they couldn't accept that T'Pol might be gone, their conviction deeply ingrained that here was someone who could take care of herself.

They all knew their missions were fraught with risk, that not all of them would make it back, some of those their friends or lovers. But not her. T'Pol being gone would upend the logical structure that underpinned their mission itself. Hoshi steadfastly refused any suggestion that the search might come to an unsuccessful end. Reed secretly harbored the conviction that she had been initiated into a Vulcan form of Section 31, removed from Starfleet but essentially safe, until she came back to the ship one day, gloriously closed-lipped. Travis couldn't believe that someone his age would be closely touched by death twice. Archer just knew that his luck would hold, they would find her. Somehow, it was Trip who seemed to have lost hope, a grey cast forever to his face and the shine perpetually off his eyes.

Archer knew that he and T'Pol had been friendly, wondered if there were more. He consulted Phlox about it and the doctor just shook his head, seemed almost surprised that Archer would ask, didn't say anything when the captain out loud wondered why Trip would be so affected, just shook his head again and would not venture other than a medical opinion, possibly depression.

And Archer kept seeing the magnitude of his failure every time he looked at Trip.

xxx

His mind went back to the day T'Pol had disappeared. The meeting place was right outside the marketplace. They were in the process of reconvening, ready to take the shuttle back to Enterprise. T'Pol had been there, and then she had ducked aside and he had lost track of her. He had first been surprised when she didn't show up again, then irritated. It had taken a full half-hour before, one by one, the members of the party gradually realized that perhaps something had gone wrong. Then, as minutes ticked by and she still didn't show up, accepted that something had gone horribly wrong.

The next hours had been a blur of motion. He could still see Hoshi at her station, looking up to tell him there were thirty Vulcan biosigns around the area where T'Pol had been when she disappeared. The senior officers and members of the crew had fanned out, in pairs, knocking on doors, going to back offices, places of meditation, each time disappointed that their Vulcan interlocutor was not T'Pol, each time asking so politely if perhaps they knew her, had seen her, knew of her whereabouts. That was when they had learned Vulcans never walked Qaybos alone, there had been other disappearances over the years, always around market week, most often new arrivals from other ships, the residents knew to travel in groups, though it had also happened once or twice that a couple had disappeared. They were too few in number to get focused interest from the local authorities or from Vulcan itself, and had adapted by not leaving their dwellings during the quarterly events. Now they would be on the look-out for another one, a single member of their species, one young female, last seen during market week. Another face and name on the roster of those who had disappeared.

While others were contacting the Vulcans on Qaybos, Malcolm and he had trekked up and down the market aisles, showing T'Pol's picture to the stall owners, asking for any sightings. But there had been too many people, the merchants had been occupied plenty with the people stopped at their stalls, they certainly didn't have the time for passers-by.

How could someone disappear so completely? Finally, the youth of one of the merchants remembered seeing her, walking between stalls, amazed that a Vulcan would be walking alone during market week. Then he had lost sight of her. It had helped that T'Pol was a striking woman. He was able to roughly point the area where he saw her, before he didn't.

Archer and Malcolm had walked up and down that same aisle dozens of times. It was Malcolm, always the suspicious one, who finally noticed there was a space where the coolant hiding towers created a blind spot of sorts in the market. He and Archer had walked over, Archer mutely interrogating the concrete floor, the brick walls. There was no sign of struggle, wouldn't be any in such a setting. "Captain". Malcom had interrupted him. Archer turned around to his tactical officer, who looked as glum as he ever remembered seeing him. Distraught even. Archer's eyes went to something Malcolm had in his hand. Why would Malcolm have his communicator out? It took a few seconds before his brain could accept what his eyes were telling him. That was T'Pol's communicator. "I found it under the trash can in the corner. Old habit from my time with the section." Malcolm cleared his throat. "I think we have a problem."

They had rushed back to the Enterprise, putting everyone to task on finding any clues. It was Trip who, remembering only too keenly how he had worked with T'Pol when the Suliban had taken Klaang, had thought about going through the ships telemetry and getting the ion signatures of every ship that had been in orbit around Qaybos. The process had been slow, with over 200 vessels identified, some of them easy outliers, because neither Vulcan nor human could have survived their atmosphere without life support, others that could be eliminated through deductive reasoning. It still had left over fifty ships that they needed to find and hail, one by one, stopping them on their journey, asking questions, engaging long enough that the sensors could mutely do their job of looking for Vulcan DNA. That had taken weeks, every encounter fruitless, T'Pol was not on board. In the end, they had a couple of ionic signatures left, and no ships to match.

They had been looking for those ships when the orders from Starfleet came through, and all they knew was that they needed to keep looking for them.

xxx

"So we have to go to Feurata?" Trip asked in a monotone, pushing back in his chair. He already knew the answer but he asked just in case Jon had not thought about the obvious.

Archer inwardly sighed. In the end, the conversation with Trip hadn't gone half as badly as he had feared. But instead of making him feel better, it made him feel worse, underlining how much the engineer had changed over the past couple of months. Gone was the constant amusement, the razor-sharp wit, the sunshine. He had just quietly taken in what Archer told him, without any of his usual comments or goofiness. Archer realized it was a long time since he'd heard him laugh.

"M'afraid so." Archer's voice was muffled by his hand. He was hunched over his knees, resting his head on his hands, eyes almost level with his desk, scowling. He had tried to figure a way out already, and simply couldn't. Enterprise was the flagship of the Federation and the Federation wanted all its colors out as it welcomed the Brolains, their first anchor in the Chone V quadrant. There was no pressing or legitimate reason for them to stick around the Ceplephus quadrant.

At least, none that Starfleet knew. Archer had carefully omitted to mention the disappearance of a certain First Officer aka Science Officer aka Vulcan scion, knowing only too well that Starfleet would highjack the proceedings once he did, take control of the search-and-rescue mission while sending Enterprise out of the way in a far corner of space, and hastily close the file 'disappeared and presumed dead' after six weeks to collect electronic dust in an archival database while the ship and its crew had to pick up and go wherever Starfleet sent them, but it wouldn't be in the Ceplephus quadrant.

Suddenly, Archer looked up. He knew what to do. Once he reported T'Pol missing and Starfleet took control of things, regulations would require they engage in a six-week search operation before they could stamp T'Pol as presumed dead and close the file. But if he reached out to a certain ambassador, who held him in high enough esteem that he even once shook his hand, he could bet that Vulcan would pay a lot of attention to the search. And Starfleet would have to show the search was high-level and exhaustive because they could not disappoint Vulcan. Who happened to be one of the building blocks of the United Federation of Planets. Who happened to be the organization that Starfleet served. And, even on the off-chance Vulcan didn't outright request Enterprise to participate in the search, Starfleet would have to enroll her in the rescue effort because they didn't have another ready ship like her. It was all very logical.

"Once we go and take care of the Brolains, we'll be back on our exploration mission in no time." Archer confidently said, looking insistently at Trip, not wanting to share his plan before he had talked to Soval.

Trip eyed him silently. If they were lucky, it would take two months before they were back in the sector, at least. If they were lucky. John as usual was being hyper-optimistic, what where the chances they would ever come back? And if they never came back, they would never find T'Pol. If she was still alive. He had his doubts. He hadn't been able to feel her presence in his mind since she had abruptly disappeared, almost two months before. He thought he would go mad with heartache and anxiety, had tried to find the white space but all his efforts had been in vain. Unable to sleep, he had read extensively about Vulcan bonds, using Phlox's library so that his search path through the ship's database wouldn't be too obvious. Everything he read pointed to the fact she was probably dead, or else he would still be able to feel her. He figured that not being Vulcan, the interruption of the bond had not killed him outright. It had simply sucked all the joy and pleasure out of his life. He wasn't sure that was better.

Archer sighed, frozen out by Trip's silence. Were he so lucky that the call to the embassy would go half as well as his meeting with the engineer.

xxx

Ambassador Soval's hand lingered over the cut-off button for one second longer than necessary. He steepled his fingers in front of him, staring pensively at the screen. If he had not been Vulcan, he would have gotten up and started pacing across the room. He had been T'Pol's mentor, and kinmate, and he would always have a special connection to the young woman, whom he had promised his old friend he would look after. To find out that she had disappeared. What would he explain to his friend? Yes, he understood she had thrown her lot with the Humans and stepped aside from the protective framework of tradition, but she was young and full of ardor and if youth was not the time for misguided action, what other time was there in one's life?

To know that she was missing was troublesome indeed, but then there was the matter of the other missing Vulcans, the ones nobody had known about, or cared to know about. V'las regime had been blind and duplicitous and intolerant, but Soval had always believed that they were simply misguided in their intents to protect Vulcan. Now he had to consider the possibility they were actually as malevolent as their actions seemed to indicate. Every month, they found new evidence of the evil at the heart of the V'Las regime.

He called his assistant to pull up the files on the Ceplephus sector and on Qaybos. He needed to check whether it was that the disappearance of Vulcan citizens had been unreported or disregarded. Qaybos might be a minuscule outpost far away from accepted trade roads, and that might appeal to those who were less wedded to tradition, but it had never been a reason to deny the full protection of Vulcan to its citizens.

As he waited for the files, he let his mind logically consider and sort through alternatives. He had seen how painful it was for the Human captain to personally call him and let him know. This did not do much to alleviate Soval's concern, but it was noted. He knew that Archer would stand by his crew no matter what, there was no need to question further whether he had paid less attention to T'Pol's care than to the care of other crew members. Perhaps the abductors were Romulans? If that were the case, T'Pol and the others would never be found again. There was no logic pursuing a thought that had no outcome. Better to assume she was somewhere where she could be reached. He perused the files that had just chimed in.

He reached out to the intercom on his desk. "Subcommander, please contact Vulcan and ask for a personal conference with T'Pau."

After his conference with T'Pau, he would have the same message be sent to all the embassies, all the trade desks, the remote outposts where a small Vulcan population may be anchored, each time with the same question, whether there were events affecting the community that had not been reported to the authorities or to Vulcan, and if they had, that had not been acted upon.


	4. The Forest 4 - The I'Ph'Lis

"Ssh, child, sshh" the voice was talking and yet not talking. It was piercing her head. The pain was all-encompassing and she tried to shrink away from it.

"Ssh, it will pass. Everything passes." T'Pol came to with a start, staring into the old woman's eyes. Where was she? She looked at the boughs around, she had no idea. Then it slowly came back to her, groggily. She was helped to a sitting position by Elderweiss, and immediately retched, even though there was nothing left to expulse. Her head was swimming yet she couldn't remember being sick. Of course not, she hadn't been sick, it was the brew that precipitated this intense reaction.

She grabbed her head with both hands, rocking herself back and forth in an attempt to quell the pain, to stave off the nausea. She knew already it wouldn't make a difference, nothing would, until the toxins from the decoction leached out of her system. She fell on her side, rolled into a fetal ball, while Elderweiss gnarled hands awkwardly patted her back, her face a mixture of compassion and sorrow. How she would that the young alien not suffer so from the tribal obligation. That she find the I'Ph'Lis an inconvenience, like they all did, rather than this bottomless abomination.

Elderweiss sat back on her heels, considering. It could be that the young one would never develop a tolerance for the drink and that her life energy would slowly ebb away, like it had with the other aliens. Some like her and some unalike. And yet there was no choice. To protect the tribe, they all had to take the sweet nectar. It was the V'Bu'Rwe tree and the G'Qe'Nkaa root that kept them safe, thickets of growth protectively muting their psi waves from the roaming hunters. Only in I'Hy'Iuvh did the V'Bu'Rwe trees grow to the sky in towering boughs, the G'Qe'Nkaa tightly wrapped around their upward thrust. It had to do with the mountains in the East, and the prevailing winds, and this being a deep valley right before the peaks, ever wet from clouds torn anew, tall from being inhospitable. Only the tribe lived there, unknown, unfound, and carefully hidden, telepathic from mother to child, their ranks swelled every so often by those of the hunted as managed to escape. Sometimes even aliens like the young one or others whose skin held the blue of precious stones. But the I'Ph'Lis and the wet did away with them all.

Elderweiss sighed. Her eyes and the mottled yellow on her skin had grown white with age, and still the tribe had to remain hidden. From the long line of Elderweisses before her, she knew of a time when the Sighting Ones roamed the surface of Y'Cr'Stea, at one with the hunters, hordes of proudly mottled bronze bodies and yellow eyes, when being a thought-reader was not the judge of an I'Shlin's character. Every Elderweiss once matriarch of the tribe dreamed of a future like the past, when they would walk again freely with their hunter brethren, unthreatened by them, when they would leave I'Hy'Iuvh and feel the suns of Y'Cr'Stea on their skin, and the winds in their manes. How she wished the I'Ph'Lis was but a memory of the morrows, a time when the Sighting Ones would no longer have to touch skin in order to know one's thoughts, when they could take pride in their Sighting, when thought-reading was no longer a source of shame. And death.

She sighed again. If she only could, she would dispense the young one, how could a lone alien with limited Sighting threaten the entire tribe? Would it be that all of them didn't have to drink the I'Ph'Lis. But beyond her compassion at seeing the young one so stricken, and the alien's physical and psychical pain, there was the health and survival of the tribe. She was the Elderweiss, the Mother to all of them. She could not choose. She could no lighten the hand of tribal law for they were all equal in their desolation.

For desolate was their plight. They had forsaken any claim to what by right should have been theirs, the cities and the amenities that the hunted ones brought back in the folds of their memories, before the I'Ph'Lis stranded them in a present without past and without future. That was its purpose, to bind psionic receptors, sever telepathic connections, and reduce memories to a dream-like state. Everything they had been, everything they had known would disappear in the fog of the before and the after. Nobody ever came out of I'Hy'Iuvh, not so much because of the hunters, but because they had lost the path that would take them home.

As Elderweiss, she held the collective of the tribal memory, carefully handed down generations, to be kept whole and safe until one day the Sighting Ones walked free again. As Elderweiss, she alone could remember. With great sorrow. A sorrow that wouldn't be the tribe members'. The young one too, if she survived, would know the simple happiness of days without past and without future.

The Elderweisses before her had taught her about glorious times when the Sighting Ones could mind-talk across land and space. Before the Great Catastrophe. The arrogance of their forebears, trying to dominate the Unsighted Ones. Until Sighting became a curse and the Sighting Ones became the hunted, to find refuge in I'Hy'Iuvh with its standing groves of ancient V'Bu'Rwe trees. Only later did they realize how the G'Qe'Nkaa worked with the V'Bu'Rwe. And later still, did they decide to retreat further into safety and mix the bark of the V'Bu'Rwe with the roots of the G'Qe'Nkaa to brew the I'Ph'Lis. That was their weapon against sorrow and against the hunters, its purpose to dampen the telepathic centers, unravel the close ties that bound them to their past, dull the sharpness of the Sighting, so that they could mind-talk only if touched. The young alien hard argued that, logically, the hunted were safe in I'Hy'Iuvh, there was no need or reason to take the decoction and add to the vegetal protection. When had it been decided that it was necessary to ingest it? She knew not. But drink it they must. And they would. It would not be said that Elderweiss was the one who put the tribe at risk

xxx

T'Pol felt Elderweiss pat her back again. The physical contact of the old woman's hand was all she felt. There was no accompanying psionic reverberation, nothing to let her know it was Elderweiss, other than the elder sitting with her in miserable companionship. The repeated patting was not the emotional infringement it should have been, there was no mental contact to be shied from, no vibration from another mind carefully held at bay behind her shields. The absence of psionic presence was obscene, something that was and should not be. It amplified the gut wrenching of the drink they forced on her, sharpened the nausea from psi points dampened into a dull ache. Without the familiar echo of the psionic readings, the world was flat, she was adrift, there were no moorings.

Elderweiss had talked of developing a tolerance to the strange potion, but Vulcan physiology was not I'Shlin. The I'Shlin's abilities were easily re-routed through other systems, finding a reduced expression in touch-telepathy. Vulcan psionic abilities started at touch-telepathy, their psiothonic receptors were part of the synaptic regime, the careful scaffolding that structured emotional suppression and allowed higher cortical functions, the laddering that enabled meditation. Without the familiar echo of her psionic bearings she would sink, overcome by emotional distress and unable to claw her way to the light of logic. The I'Ph'Lis was an attack against the mind, leaving her naked before life.

It reminded her of the Expanse, of the Selaya, of the trellium. Unlike the trellium, the I'Ph'lis did not bring paranoid hyper-awareness, instead dampening her connections to the outside world, hiding things behind a cotton-like layer so that they were half-seen and reality lost its cohesiveness. Back in the Expanse there had been Trip, Trip to help her weather the synaptic storms. Here she had nothing. Had Trip been real? His existence itself seemed to dissolve into the haze of dreams. Could someone really have hair that yellow? Or was it the yellow eyes of the I'Shlin her mind had transformed. What did he even look like? She wasn't sure she remembered. The drink erased the bond, leaving her alone with an aloneness she had never felt. An aloneness worse than that of a month helmeted in the hold of her ship's abductors, where even if she could not mind-touch the outside world, she could still sense her own self. The I'Ph'Lis ripped away at the psionic foundations, poisoned her soul and left her adrift in a world where memories may not have been and surroundings may not have shape.

She gathered her limbs into a tight ball, trying to compensate with physical contact the abject sense of loss, the feeling perhaps she was not there. Her fingers could feel the uniform that was mostly tatters now, holding because there was no choice. But without her mind to reassure its contours, how could she know where she ended and where the outside world started? Her hair had grown shaggy over her eyes. How long had it been? Was it the rain drumming on the boughs overhead? How could she know for sure? Without the reassuring confirmation of the mind, it could be so many other things. How could she tell what was real anymore? Devoid of the profile of psionic recognition, everything held the same flatness.

The first time had been the worst, not knowing what to expect. She shuddered at the memory, shuddered at the fact she was shuddering, closing her eyes in bitter defeat. That was another effect of the drug, overfilling the psionic points and preventing emotional suppression. What good was she if she couldn't suppress her emotions? Even that was rank emotionalism. She took a deep breath, trying to soothe the turbulence of her mind, to come back to a rational point, a logical suite, a framework she could grab onto while the psiothonic storm worked its dark magic. This was her third time of I'Ph'Lis. She knew from previous times that the initial couple of days would be the worst, making her want to retreat into a mental place without pain, if she could only find one. She was not developing a tolerance. She would survive this time also, that was clear then slowly she would find that she could meditate again, until she was back within herself and Elderweiss came to tell her they had to start again. She rested her head on her knees, a buzzing sound in her ears.

And then suddenly she was in the past, back to the first day when the I'Shlins had found her, when they had brought her to Elderweiss, she felt the weight of the knife in the elder's hand, before she proclaimed her one of them. The Sighting Ones they called themselves, no different than the hunters other than their ability to mind-read. The hunters were mistaken, trying to prevent a genetic variance through genocide. They were all part of the same. Her touch-telepathy had kept her safe, she saw Elderweiss approving, the knife lowering.

She had drunk the thin gruel they handed her, too tired and famished to hesitate. She had awakened from a tortured nightmare, flames in her eyes and in her brains, holding on to her skull lest it would split, hardly able to stand up. The guards had grabbed her and dragged-walked her to a clearing, the entire tribe following, stopping and waiting whenever the guards let her retch by the side. Remnants of the rain were dribbling on the leaves of the trees, collecting on the spongy moss under her feet. Elderweis was there, standing on a tree trunk, the entire tribe had sunk like one to the ground and she was standing alone in front of the ancient alien, the noise in her head drowning any coherent thought. Yellow eyes were lighting the forest around her. Was it some sacrificial ceremony?

There was a sudden seesawing in her head, before she realized the tribe was rubbing rough sticks against the bark of some trees. Insects danced all around her, in vain, her blood was uncooperative. Wet drops dripped from the leaves above, smacking the spongy soil in unheard drops. Except she heard them all, each drop louder than the last. She heard the rubbing of the wings on the insects all around, she heard the breaths of the birds up high, she heard the hearts of all of those in the tribe beating a three prong chant. She heard the air they inhaled, she heard the blood dilating their vessels, brushing through their veins. She thought she would go mad. There was too much to hear. Elderweiss came over and grabbed her by the neck again, chanting unknown words, the images speeding through T'Pols mind which were not her memories, which were not of her world, or of any world she knew. Elderweiss asked a question and the tribe replied. T'Pol waited for the mortal blow. The old one asked another questioned and the tribe replied again, beating the soft ground with their hands and feet. The noise would drive her mad.

And suddenly there was silence.

An ethereal silence that stretched and enveloped the world, wrapping the noisemakers into yards of downy hush. She was at a great distance. Her mind was wrapped in shadows. She could no longer sense the tribe, now graven images. The old woman spoke directly in her mind. "You are one of us now. The I'Ph'Lis will keep you safe." The sound was clear and ringing in her head. But it was only sound, there was no mind-echo. The tribe members approached her, one by one, each laying a hand and talking their welcome in her mind. Drinking the I'Ph'Lis was a time of joy and tribal bonding. For them.

T'Pol came back to the present when she felt Edelweiss leave the hut, did not unclench her hands from where they were holding her head, rocking in a vain attempt to hold onto herself.

xxx

From the Vulcan database

 _I'Ph'Lis is an anatheic potion made from the bark of the V'Bu'Rwe trees. I'Ph'Lis primary action is to halt telepathic communication, both expressive and receptive. It prevents meditation and reduces memories to a dream-like state. The potion becomes orally active when the bark of the V'Bu'Rwe tree is mixed with roots from the G'Qe'Nkaa liana._

 _Chemically, the V'Bu'Rwe tree relies on the SNR molecule. SNR can reduce memories to imagined hallucinations. SNR has a long duration, intense effects and rapid onset. When SNR is inhaled or injected, the effects last about 5 days. Effects can last up to a week or longer when orally ingested along with an NQIU. NQIUs are a class of psiothonic blockers that have a long history of use in intelligence warfare._

 _Psiothonic blockers are a class of drug whose primary action is to block telepathic experiences via psiothan (a compound present in blood platelets and serum that serves as a psionic transmitter) receptor agonism (the combining of a chemical substance with a specific receptor on a cell thereby initiating the same reaction or activity typically produced by the binding of an endogenous substance). This modifies the consciousness of telepathic species and depresses psionic receptors and sensors, causing the loss of psionic abilities and a reduced state of memory recall._

 _G'Qe'Knaa rely on NQIUs, a class of drugs that inhibit the reception of telepathic activity, and EUNAs, a subclass of NQIUs. EUNAs selectively and reversibly inhibit the NQIU-R-B enzyme. This inhibition of NQIU-R-B allows SNR to diffuse unmetabolized past the membranes in the stomach and small intestine, and eventually cross the blood–brain barrier to desactivate receptor sites in the brain. NQIUs bear the possibility of psiothonic toxicity and their use must be strictly controlled._

 _The ingestion of I'Ph'Lis can cause significant, but temporary, emotional and psychological distress and can trigger a psiothonic storm, though some natural tolerance to habitual use of I'Ph'Lis may develop._

 _A psiothonic storm is a group of symptoms that may occur following use of certain psiothonergic (denoting a nerve ending that releases and is stimulated by psiothan) drugs. The degree of symptoms can range from mild to severe. Symptoms include cold sweats, headaches, dizziness, vomiting, prostration. Complications may include meningitis and extensive muscle breakdown._

 _35% of Vulcans will experience psiothonic syndrome with the ingestion of NQIUs._

xxx


	5. The Forest 5 - The Discovery

xxx

"Ambassador Soval, Minister T'Pau is asking to speak with you."

Soval got up from where his meditation nook, letting his aide know with a nod as he stepped out that he would take the call. The young woman's skin was sallow, talking to the days and nights the embassy analysts had been reviewing the data that streamed back to them from the many Vulcan colonies and outposts sprinkled throughout deep space. The flow was unending, days building into weeks as the messages traversed of miles of space, first in one direction and then in the other, and they still hadn't heard from everyone yet. He himself had been holed up in his office, listening to report upon report of the most egregious findings, so many of them revealing the perversion at the heart of the V'Las regime. Meditation had been needed more often than usual. For the entire staff.

The High Command was showing itself to have been an instrument of deceit and oppression, using Vulcan's logic and suppression of emotion to their own advantage. How could any of them have known that the organization at the heart of all Vulcan was a hotbed of illogical passion, rules and laws perverted for the aggrandizement of one Vulcan. And they still did not know why V'Las had acted the way he did. Some had floated the possibility of Romulan influence, quickly retracting themselves when shown how the concept itself was too enormous for it to possibly be true.

"Minister T'Pau." As always, his first thought upon seeing her was surprise that she was so young. His second thought was the suppression of the first thought, valor was not logically related to age, she had proven her mettle on the sands of the Forge. His third thought turning to surprise again that she had been chosen as the envoy between Surak and Archer. Between Surak and Archer. The universe was long-lived already and probabilities were certain that stranger things must have happened. But still.

T'Pau was agitated. Her youth made it harder for the smooth skin over her facial features to dissimulate minute signs of tension. "We are getting reports of potential collusion." She didn't finish the thought. She couldn't. Soval understood that as a Syrannite, expression was forbidden to her unless it was reality. The collusion of the V'Las regime or V'Las himself, evidence so far had been that it did not reach that deep, with the Romulans was not a known fact and therefore T'Pau could not say it.

He let his mind roam over the royal 'we'. Soval suddenly saw himself bent over from age in a reality far into the future, thinking at some utterance from T'Pau that 'she hadn't changed'. He had rarely seen one so young with a character so firmly set. She was Vulcan itself, she was Mount Selaya, its tallest peak, come to walk among them. She was formidable. He inclined his head in deference. V'Las may have been a good administrator, or at least convinced all of Vulcan that he was a good administrator, which now was known to be a bold-faced lie, and T'Pau may be awkward in her young age, full of angles and her new government lurching haphazardly in its gambit to do too much too soon, but she was a force to be reckoned with. Once they had come to terms with the worst parts of the V'Las regime, his dominion as the shepherd of all Vulcan would go down in memory as a wisp of administrative excellence, the precursor for her reign and the preeminence she brought to the role.

But he needed to give an answer to the question that she had not asked. "I cannot affirm that there was collusion." He replied. They were still sorting through the data, they may never arrive at an answer. "It does seem there was a pattern of ignoring reports from the outposts closest to the Romulan Empire." He cleared his throat. What he was going to say next would not be welcome news.

Before he spoke another word, he remembered to check that the encryption software was turned on. The Humans on Earth somehow believed that the embassy staff had not found all the bugs planted in the walls and other strategic places, when in fact there was a data chip on the desk of Vulcan's top security official listing the serial number and precise, of course, location of all these listening devices. To keep the pretense, every seventy months or so, the Vulcan staff made a 'discovery' of one of the bugs. Raised eyebrows followed, radiating anger, then the inevitable apologies and declaration that such indiscretion would never happen again. Things would quiet a while, the other devices untouched and new ones stealthily installed, for such was the necessary behavior of the office, which the Vulcans would pretend not to know about until the next discovery cycle.

It was always a question of patterns. If the Humans had not constantly been shuffling their embassy personnel, perhaps one of them would have been in place long enough to realize that the discovery cycle closely overlaid the cyclical renewal of the senior Vulcan embassy staff. To the junior staff was given the task of selecting which of the listening devices would be 'uncovered' and finding any new ones that were installed. As a result of the 'discoveries', the senior staff would leave at a time of some tension between Vulcan and Earth, because of the latter's indiscretion. That made it less likely that Earth would keep a close eye on what the senior staff was taking with them back to Vulcan, including the highly confidential Earth-related materials amassed over the previous seventy months. For such was the necessary behavior of the office. It was always a question of patterns.

In the meantime, Vulcan counter-intelligence software made a joke out of the Human listening devices. It wouldn't last long, diplomatic secrets never lasted and the Humans were a force to be reckoned with.

Like T'Pau.

She was still waiting for what he would say, eyebrow halfway raised that he would make her wait, knowing that Soval was one of the finest around, using his past as a warrior when it so suited and, when it didn't, wrapping the truth in elaborate layers of words that prevented its cold asperities from hurting too fast.

He finally turned to her, ready to speak, checking that the encryption software was turned on, which was illogical as his office was always protected. But what he was going to say could hardly be uttered. "We are exploring further but we have information of twice where a Vulcan outpost was destroyed, without a corresponding spike of energy and personnel coming out of Romulan space. Or any other known aggressor."

He could see in T'Pau's slightly flared nostrils that the news had been received. Her eyes widened, eyebrows pulled by some invisible threads all the way to her hairline. "What are thee saying?"

She knew very well what he was saying and he understood such knowledge was as difficult as it was unwelcome. He had to keep speaking the truth they had found, however unsavory. As unsavory as the thought he himself had served the V'Las regime, fortunately logic prevented him from dwelling on the past. What was, was. "There is a possibility that forces aligned with the V'Las regime were behind the destruction of these outposts."

"A possibility is not a certainty."

Soval inclined his head towards her. So she wanted to be contrary... He simply would raise the gambit. "The possibility also exists that these were Vulcan forces and are still on Vulcan."

That effectively silenced T'Pau, her brow layered with lines of sorrow. She looked uncertainly at Soval. Chasing the supporters of the ancient regime out of the governmental structure had already been a challenge. What would she do against organized and armed forces? What would they do?

Soval spoke again. "Preliminary indications are that these... forces... have been temporarily dissembled, but not eliminated. They can quickly reassemble."

T'Pau nodded. There were potential enemy armies on Vulcan. Which were made up of Vulcans. Such was the illogicality of civil strife. If they hadn't yet acted, it meant they would wait longer still. But they knew which of her actions would not please them... and she did not.

"I need speak with thee in person."

Soval inclined his head at the summons. "I heed thy call." Having given the customary acceptance, he looked up again. "We have additional information about the Ceplephus galaxy. The pattern of disappearance is indicative of a broader issue."

"Starfleet is investigating." T'Pau's answer was short, her focus on the potential rebel armies on Vulcan. Others could uncover what may be going on.

Soval eyed T'Pau squarely. "Starfleet has contacted me about the fact that their mission is at an end." There was no need to add it was unsuccessful. If it had been successful, he would have announced they had found T'Pol.

An eyebrow raised at the news. "Who gave them leave to stop? They have hardly started."

Soval let the most minute sigh settle in his throat. He had spent long enough on Earth that the Humans' different sense of time no longer took him unaware. Humans lived a third of a Vulcan lifespan. Six months for them would be eighteen months for a Vulcan. "It is the intersection of policy and resources. Starfleet sets searches at six weeks. Space is a vast frontier and their ships are few."

Another eyebrow arched at the news. "I believe the matter is broader than Starfleet." There was a scoff in the tone. Soval's eyebrow almost raised in response. Could it be that she would go directly to the ruling Council of the Federation? "I will advise the President of the Council." She added matter-of-factly.

Soval nodded. "I will notify Starfleet command." And he would do so promptly. There were few, Vulcan or Human, who could resist a personal call from T'Pau. Actually none that he could recall.

Now was the time to place his query. "I would make a detour by the Ceplephus galaxy on my way to Vulcan."

T'Pau eyed him silently. She could have accused him of emotionalism but bonds of loyalty were all important and he was bound by the oath to his dead friend. She knew T'Pol, who was older than she was. Her mother had been a steady friend and she had melded with the daughter, scandalized at the behavior that was so un-Vulcan while marveling at the possibilities of something bigger than tradition. Hers was the way of the future. But T'Pau was the overseer of all Vulcan and official business could never bend to personal indulgence.

However much she had liked T'Les, however much she cared for T'Pol, such considerations were unworthy of her role as Vulcan's foremother. From the time she became the overseer forever into the future, only indirectly could she express her care, her concern, her assent, by a gesture made here, an action not taken there, a wedding attended at times, but never could she engage all of Vulcan in her personal realm.

"Very well." She finally granted. "We need to know that the search is being conducted." Her official order granted Soval's mission and limited it also. He would go to the Ceplephus galaxy and ensure Vulcan's interests were represented, no more. Then he would come to Vulcan.

She could allow herself to do no more.

xxx

Soval pursed his lips slightly. If his interlocutor had been Vulcan, he would have been shocked at the obvious sign of discontent and tried by all means to pacify the older man. But the Human in front of him didn't know enough to know when to seek shelter.

Admiral Forrest would have known. Soval once again found himself thinking of his Human friend, killed in duty right when he had expressed his pleasure at seeing Vulcan and Earth collaborate. His dreams did eventually take shape even if he was nowhere to see them. Admiral Forrest would never have delegated to an underling the task of speaking to Soval, especially not as a means of avoiding unpleasant conversations. But Admiral Forrest was not there.

"I will speak with Admiral Toussaint." There was no need to frame it as a question. Since Admiral Toussaint was the one who contacted him about the suspension of the search, it was Admiral Toussaint he would contact about its restoration. The future tense only expressed the ineluctability of their conversation. Soval would never understand why Humans bristled at such declarations. True to form, the youngish man on the screen started blushing, obviously thinking that he had been found insufficient. Soval would have someone explain to the man that it was purely a matter of efficiency. It would be inefficient to address a representative who did not have any power to yield.

"Admiral Toussaint is not there. I will patch you to my commanding officer." The aide swallowed again.

Soon a coffee-skinned woman appeared on the screen. "Admiral Zagrovsk." She introduced herself curtly. If she had been Vulcan, she would look to be about a hundred and fifty. He surmised she must be fifty or so. The mark of a successful career. "Ambassador Soval, you honor us with your presence." The tip of Soval eyebrow twitched at the improper greeting, he was not physically present. But she had made an effort to adapt to Vulcan ways and he held off his arrogant comment.

"Where is admiral Toussaint?" Soval wondered if there had been yet another shuffle among the admiralty. Humans would never appreciate how unsettling it was to a Vulcan, to have personnel change as frequently as Starfleet's did.

"Admiral Toussaint has been pulled from the Ceplephus investigation. I apologize for the oversight in letting you know. My aide is new." Soval parsed the meaning behind the disconnected sentences, reflecting at the same time that T'Pau worked fast. And hard. If he had the opportunity when he was on Vulcan, he would talk to her about how Humans didn't take reassignment always logically, about not turning them into enemies. Probabilities were high that it would not change any of her behavior.

Already, there was a possibility the admiralty had deliberately kept the news of the reassignment from him. Or Admiral Zagrovsk could have been telling the truth. Humans were experts at such dissociation. It was beneath his notice.

"Admiral Toussaint left word that the search in the Ceplephus galaxy was coming to an end." Soval said in the form of an explanation. That was not quite accurate. He had left word it had come to an end.

"I'm afraid that's not entirely true." Zagrovsk corrected. "Admiral Toussaint thought the search should come to an end. However," she nervously cleared her throat, "the Federation had asked Starfleet Command to pursue the search in conjunction with Vulcan." She looked straight at him and Soval inclined his head in acknowledgment that the message had been received. If Vulcan wanted Starfleet to continue the search they needed to send a ship.

"I will relay to Minister T'Pau the need for a research vessel." He paused for effect. "I am personally on my way to Ceplephus. I intend to meet there with the person in charge of field operations."

Zagrovski pinked visibly. Soval waited. This was the point when the other side would confess that nothing had been done yet. Or not. They would of course not dare say nothing would be done, and a ship would be dispatched to Ceplephus with all alacrity, to meet with his. There were many ways to jumpstart a mission.

"Very well, I will let you know which of the ships assigned to the search will meet with yours. Zagrovsk out."

The abrupt interruption did not bother Soval. He knew there were no Starfleet ships currently in the Ceplephus galaxy. Vulcan intelligence had informed him the lone vessel that Starfleet had dispatched to the task had hailed back to Earth at about the same time Admiral Toussaint contacted him. But Starfleet had represented it had sent more than one ship and could not be found wanting. The vessel that was on its way back to Earth would be recalled, and then they would look for another craft able and ready to help with the search effort.

Enterprise should be close to being done with the induction ceremonies. He would ask Vulcan intelligence to confirm. Then might be the time when T'Pau's helpful hand would once again be called into play.


	6. The Forest 6 - The Induction

xxx

Enterprise was not done with the induction ceremonies.

Far from it. Though he had a smile on his face, Archer was secretly stewing. Their mission to Feurata had been a prime example of the hurry up and wait inanity that some mistook for diplomacy. Starfleet had ordered them to hightail it out of Ceplephus as if an army of Romulans were at the gates of Feurata, ready to enroll the Brolains into their ranks. Just because Feurata was one of the last major planets before Romulan space.

Two weeks. It had taken them two weeks to get to Feurata at warp five, because they had to skirt millions of miles of Romulan space.

That was a month ago already. Since then, all they'd been doing was wait. Wait in between the self-congratulatory official and state dinners. Wait in between the side trips to see the marvels of Feurata and the obligatory 'oohs' and 'aahs' that went with that. Wait for the many levels of adherence, agreement, approval, consent and acknowledgement that were required, Feurata's governmental structures were insanely convoluted.

And now they were waiting for the ceremonies to come to an end and Feurata and the Brolains to be admitted to the United Federation of Planets. Six days already. The ceremonies had lasted a whole six days so far. If they didn't finish soon, he could very well see Enterprise being called to some other emergency in some other sector. He would make one up himself if he had to.

All that time they could have been looking for the unknown ships back in the Ceplephus galaxy. Should have been back there looking. But instead Starfleet had sent them as the Federation flagship to the induction ceremony on Feurata and forgot to mention that nothing had been signed yet, it would take weeks before anyone was ready. Archer was not unaware of the silent message of strength from having one of the biggest starships in the Federation in orbit. But Starfleet should have told them there would be waiting involved.

And as if that weren't bad enough, they had decided to call off the search. Just as he had expected. Not that they would have let him know, he had to find out from a friendly Starfleet bureaucrat, which is why it helped to make and keep friends along the way. A friend who alerted him to the communication from Admiral Toussaint. That was five days ago. Starfleet hadn't spent even one minute longer than the required six weeks. As soon as they were done here he was going after those missing ships.

He looked around with feigned interest at the assembled dignitaries. His dress uniform pinched at his neck and he made a mental note to have the quartermaster update his measurements again. Next to him, Reed looked regal in his security blacks, while Trip looked forlorn in his blue dress uniform.

Archer looked away, sighing internally. It was not use, whatever they tried to do, nothing seemed able to reach his friend. He had talked to Phlox about it, but the engineer was performing his functions flawlessly and was not complaining, there was no rule or regulation that required him to do so joyfully or with interest. Phlox had tried to talk to him, of course, or he wouldn't be Phlox, and was still smarting from the round rebuke he got, though he wouldn't tell Archer exactly what it was that Trip had said. And Archer still had to tell him that Starfleet had stopped their search operations. Though the engineer knew how to count to six, he probably had figured it out by himself.

Archer looked around again. He had left Hoshi in charge of Enterprise and it struck him that Starfleet's delegation lacked in gender diversity. He never really had to think about it when T'Pol… His jaw clenched and he consciously tried to find distraction in the going-ons. Though distraction was the wrong word by far. The functions on Feurata probably ranked among the most boring he had ever been tasked to attend, and lord knew he had attended some seriously boring ones. First there had been the speech by the president of the commission in charge of studying the adherence of the Brolains to the Federation, then the speech by the president of the United Council of Brolain, responsive to the commission president's speech, next the speech by the president of the First Chamber of the United Council of Brolain. First, because there were more than a couple of council chambers. Actually, he was currently listening to the speech by the president of the Seventh Chamber of the United Council of Brolain.

Archer discreetly eyed the padd in his lap and checked with a mixture of horror and resignation that there were fifteen chambers in the council. Per the day's program, all these wonderful speeches would be followed by another speech of the council's president, then the closing speech of the commission president. At which point they could start with the Federation speeches.

His would be among the last ones, and he hastily rewrote it in his head. It would consist of exactly two words, and two words exactly. 'Thank you.' Well, perhaps more than two. 'And welcome to the Federation.' At least he wouldn't have to check his padd. He wished he could spend the time like Trip, reviewing engineering circuits in his head, or like Reed, checking and re-checking every security point, the weapons being used. But he was a man of action. He shifted in his seat, once again crossing his arms. For the hundredth time, based on Reed's side glance. He responded with a dirty glance of his own. Reed had no idea what it felt like, stuck there with nothing else to think about.

The sudden explosion that shook the assembly hall took everyone by surprise. Trip ducked his head in his shoulders as debris rained on them from the ceiling. Reed was already out of his seat, stretching tall, trying to see what had happened through the noise and the smoke hiding the dais where the dignitaries had been. Pandemonium broke. The screams of the wounded were cutting over the rumble of the panicked throng. The dignitaries were trying to run away from the explosion site, hampered by the sheer number of them. Archer and his team were trying to run the other way, to the site of the explosion, dodging bodies and keeping an eye for the unexpected. A squadron of security members rushed into the hall, converging where the explosion had been.

That was when the shooting started, the bright laser rays illuminating the dust around. Archer dove between two rows of seats, trying to get out of the way, trying to look over the seats and see what was going on. The smoke was too thick, he couldn't make who was firing, only indistinct shapes across the hall, but the laser fire was fast and furious, felling security forces, forcing everyone to take cover.

Archer looked to his side where Reed was crouching, the security man peeking around the end of the row, trying to get a bearing as to where the action was. Trip was not with them. Archer's heart started beating faster and he looked back and around, trying to see to other rows through the spaces between the seats, unable to spot the familiar shock of blond hair. Where was the man?! He didn't have time to focus on that. "Reed! What do you make of it?!" The two of them were trying to look over the chairs without being cut by an enemy shot.

"Not Brolains." Reed tersely replied. His jaw was working overtime. He had to come to an induction ceremony without any weapons and this happened?! He wanted to be back aboard Enterprise, his finger on the torpedo button, and show them all not to mess with Starfleet.

"Not Brolains?!" This was an attack, not a civil strife. Who could be so brazen as to attack in full day light, while the induction ceremonies were going on? Who would benefit from Feurata not getting inducted in the Federation? Archers grip tightened on the chair in front of him. The Romulans, that was who. It was so obvious.

He needed a weapon. He swore silently under his breath, then louder, it made him feel better, even if that still didn't give him a weapon. And where was Trip? He tapped Reed's shoulder, gesturing to the fallen security guard fifteen feet by, the rifle at his side. Reed nodded, he had seen it too, was trying to figure a way of getting it without being mowed. Archer silently made a walking gesture with his two fingers, pointing to his far right. Reed vehemently shook his head, the man would get himself killed. But Archer gave him the no-worry sign and a glare, and before Reed could protest further, dove away towards the other end then quickly got-up, attracting sudden fire.

Reed had no time to think, thanking his lucky stars that training took over, he dove, grabbed, and rolled back before the enemy could redirect their fire, then waited, sitting his back to the action, catching his breath, mentally back-tracking laser light to its original point, before springing like-a-devil in the box, one shot, two shots, three… he thought he got one.

Archer had rolled back towards him and they studied their plight again, Reed angry that his captain had so lightly forced his hand.

Archer swore again, louder this time. The attackers had disrupted the ceremonies, thrown the entire assembly into disarray, it didn't make sense that they stayed. Security had regrouped and was trying to regain control of the area. If the attackers had a means of getting away, there was no need for them to stick around. If this was a suicide mission, their aim would be to take down as many as they could, their fight was essentially over, the only people left were the security forces, a few stragglers like Reed and himself, and Trip, if they could find him. But the assailants were still moving forward, obviously they had another goal in mind.

"Can you see what they're doing?" Archer hissed again. He was crouching in place, laying as low as he could. His bigger size made him more of a target, Reed had the advantage in terms of figuring out the action.

Reed's voice was angry. "Too much smoke. They're all around. We've been ambushed."

"Enterprise" Static came through the communicator and Archer slammed it shut. Romulans all around, them in the middle, Brolain dignitaries god-knows-where, and Trip. He swiveled, looking everywhere. "Where's Trip?"

"Damn if I know," Reed had his focus on the firing silhouettes, trying to time his firing back. He only needed a few seconds, perhaps there would be a break. He saw the silhouettes move further inside, the fire cover intensifying to prevent anyone from budging. "They're trying to get into the administrative center!" Reed suddenly whispered. He could see the attackers' plan, they were slowly but steadily turning the center of the battle to bring to their back the tunnel leading to the inner sanctum of the assembly hall. That would give them access to data. And to people, to anybody that was quavering in their nook, waiting for the attack to be over. The dignitaries. Some of them must have found shelter there in the mad scramble that followed. He looked back at Archer. "Hostages?"

The thought galvanized both men. If Brolain hostages were taken, Feurata would be unable to join the Federation for … Archer couldn't even bear to think how long."We've got to find a way to stop them!" he hissed at Reed. The security man looked back at him with something between anger and sorrow. And how did he propose they do that?! Archer didn't care. They needed to stop the Romulans. "Come, we've got to go." Reed sighed and took off after him, the two men crawling on their hands and knees, only one of them armed and able to defend himself. It was obvious Archer was aiming for the same tunnel the attackers were. It was pure suicide.

And yet there was no other option.

xxx

Trip looked around.

He was cornered.

More shots were fired, taking out huge chunks of the wall behind him. Dust and debris fell over him, clouding him in a shroud of metallic particulates. He hated that. He hated having people fire on him. Or around him, he wasn't particular.

He had gotten separated from Jon and Malcolm early in the melee. When the dignitaries were scrambling over each other to rush out of the building he had seen that some of them went the other way, towards the tunnel that would take them further into the structure. He had rushed after them to try and get them back out towards the exit, as an engineer he already knew the layout of the place, he realized not everyone would. Soon there were no more Brolains to try and go out the wrong exit, the only ones left were laid out on the floor or cowering in hiding, but there was no way for him to get out of where he was without being cut down by phaser fire.

He had been crouching in the shadows ever since, arms over his head against the rain of debris that regularly fell on him.

He had a passing thought for Jon and Malcolm, hoped they were all right. His attention went back to his own plight, which kept getting worse. He could see it in the streaks of fire that more often came to illuminate the entrance to the tunnel. He was stuck there and the attackers were coming closer. That was just peachy. Where was luck when you needed it? But then luck had left his life along with T'Pol. It all made sense. He crouched tighter as another shot hit above his head, and more dust crumbled on him, swearing under his breath. That he would get out of this space and find his friends. Instead he was going to die. Without even knowing why.

All of sudden he felt at great ease at the thought. Why not? He no longer cared. A shot ricocheted off the wall next to him and a small chunk blew out, finding him where he knelt. He grunted with the pain. Good thing it had been a glancing blow or he would be lying in a seeping puddle of blood. He suddenly realized that was the answer.

He would follow her in death.

All he needed to do was step in front of the next shot. But when he looked up to see where the shot would come from, the entire space was suffused in white. Was it really? He blinked in wonderment. How could it be? She was dead. This was the white space and yet it wasn't. He knew it and yet he had never seen it before. Or was it that he had died already and was in that in-between-state? He looked around at the dense mists that crowded the space, he couldn't see, there was nothing there.

"T'Pol?" he called hesitantly, just in case. Perhaps this is what happened after death, the white space became unraveled. "T'Pol?" he hazarded again. There was no answer. He took a step, the mists parting ahead, trying to see what could not be seen. He guessed a shape, almost in front of him, and took another step. But the shape receded as he neared and he stopped in place, frustrated, trying to tell whether someone was standing there. If it weren't her, he knew it must be him. Was it some construct his mind conceived just as he lay dying? "T'Pol!" he called anew, not wanting it to be him.

The fog parted slightly and the shape showed itself small, lithe even. A woman or a youth. Staring in the distance, not looking at him. Wearing pelts. Longish hair nearing the collar. Suddenly it cocked its head to the side, hair parted and Trip could see, mouth agape, the shape of a pointed ear. It was her! "T'Pol!" Trip called through the smog that kept her in hiding. His voice was rough through the knot in his throat.

Another step and he was there. "T'Pol?" He called again afraid a touch would traverse her. She didn't turn to the sound. She wasn't seeing him. He saw the edge of an eyebrow. She seemed uncertain, as if she were waiting but not sure what it was she was waiting for. Was she alive? Or was it his mind on overdrive, conjuring the past. If it were not his mind she would have heard him, turned to him, asked what he was doing there in that small peevish tone that never failed to amuse him.

"T'Pol?!" He reached out, grabbed her shoulder. His hand didn't go through. She jumped as if snake-bitten, turned to him unseeing. "T'Pol!" He tried to reach her. Now what the hell was going on? Why wasn't she seeing him? Why couldn't she hear him? He wanted to shake her, make her recognize him, force the acknowledgement she was alive, strip the statue-like denial off her face.

Suddenly she gasped and fell to her knees, hands pressed to her head, rocking back and forth, keening in pain. Something was wrong. Trip knelt beside her. He was heartbroken, unsure how to hold her, finally embracing her, rocking with her against the pain. "What's going on, honey? Are you all right? What's going on?" Why couldn't she see him? What was going on? He should be the one staggering about in the white space like a drunken man unsure of his step. "T'Pol!" She couldn't see him, she wasn't talking either. He grabbed her face, he didn't know what he was doing, probably making a mockery of it, but he had to chance it, he couldn't idly sit. He put his fingers where he remembered the psi points to be.

She jumped as if he were burning scores deep in her flesh. "Trip?" a half-whisper, a moan. It was him. Her contact with him was hurting her. What the hell was going on?! Somehow he knew not to let go. She started speaking hurriedly, breathlessly, eyes closed against the pain; muffled against him, her voice had a dream-like quality. Was she even talking? Or was it the bond? "Trip..." Her voice like a breath of wind. "You must find me." He swallowed the constriction in his throat, trying to enunciate very clearly. "Where do I find you? Where are you?" The mists around them carried the taste of disappointment. "I don't know. They call the place I'Hy'Iuvh." The name was unpronounceable but it laid in his mind, to be listened to against others.

"I'll find you." He was bowing over her to protect her from the wind. The thought brought his head up. Where did the wind come from?

xxx

The noise of the explosion was deafening, shattering the white space into crystalline fragments. Trip blinked, his eyes focusing anew on the mayhem in the ceremony hall. Another squadron of security forces had just entered the hall, intent on bringing the attack to an end. They were lobbing grenades and explosives at the assailants, trying to chase them away from the tunnel to the inner building. The tunnel at which entrance he had been huddling since the attack started.

Trip swore. For the timing of it and for the fact he was in a bad spot. He looked around desperately for some way to get out from the cross-fire, the assailants trying to cover and protect the tunnel, obviously wanting to make their way there, the Brolain forces trying to keep them at bay. Smoke from the explosives was filling the hall quickly, making it difficult to tell friend from foe. That may be his saving chance.

Hoping the smoke was thick enough to cover him, Trip started away from the tunnel entrance, crouching low. He needed to find Reed and Archer, let them know that T'Pol was alive. Hell, he even knew where she was, even if he couldn't pronounce it. He needed to get to Hoshi quickly, before the sounds became distant in his brain, hopefully she could listen to his muffled rendition and know the idiom roots.

Suddenly a form came out of the surrounding smog. It could have been one of the security forces, until he saw the helmet. Nobody knew what hid in the extra ear space but they all knew the design. Before he could sink back into the fog, another figure stepped out of the haze, as tall as the first one, also helmeted. Romulans!

He was no longer willing to die. He needed to get through, tell Archer that T'Pol was alive. He even knew where she was. He lunged at the first man. And reeled back as if he had just struck a wall. Before he could lunge again, the second attacker was speaking to the first. "There is no time. Reinforcements are here."

"This one." The first attacker said. Trip saw a rifle rise. And fire.

As oblivion took him, his last thought was surprise that he understood Romulan.


	7. The Forest 7 - The Sighting

xxx

T'Pol looked down at her hands, still slightly surprised at the roughness of her palms, the cuts and bruises of manual work, the blisters all over. She had never had to work with her hands before. The errant thought made her frown. Why would she think she never had? A memory butted against her mind like moth to a flame, never to land. Her brow creased with the almost remembered. There was something that her mind couldn't grab on. Why did she think of another world, another time? How could it make sense? The shadows of the unknown precipitated a headache. She rubbed at her temples but the pain wouldn't yield.

The rubbing brought her mind back to her hands. The cuts and bruises came from hewing her own shelter, using stones, rough tools and the techniques from the tribe. Though there were more techniques she had applied, efficiencies she had shared, some of which she knew from... once again, a blank kernel on which abutted the waves of her thoughts. She rubbed her temples again.

Her hands would not heal, rags from her clothes buffering the skin. In that, she was set aside from the tribe. In her shelter too, wooden and elevated from the mossy ground, while the Sighting Ones preferred a bed of ferns under a roof of boughs. It was not enough still. She could feel it in the gravelly breath that animated her chest, see it in the seeping wounds on her hands, in the cyclops-like ulcers adorning her feet. The boots had been long gone, made short stuff of by the hunt and the damp.

She was born to the desert... The errant thought came as an anomaly. Was it how she knew that this was an environment she could not survive? She looked at her ever-shrinking wrists, her mind casting about for the cold reassurance of numbers. One year, two years, how much time did she have left? The tribe counted in growth of the G'Qe'Nkaa, she could tell time spent by how her hair gently brushed her shoulders, what were years and why did they come to her? Another mystery. Soon the mists of the I'Ph'Lis would chase these thoughts away, bringing her back to the serenity of the unquestioning mind.

A rustling in the leaves behind her interrupted her thoughts. She instinctively grabbed her spear and waited in silence. It didn't take long before the eyes and nose of a l'mo'rae could be guessed at in the bush. Another may not have seen it, hidden between the leaves and the shadows. But Vulcan ears easily found the l'mo'rae and it was speared before it could sense danger. T'Pol mentally excused herself to the creature. She hated to kill it, had not wanted to, but it was days since the children had had meat. This was the Waning Season, the game was scarcer and the berries fewer. There would be cheerfulness when she walked back to the clearing, the l'mo'rae swung over her shoulders, the children running alongside her. She would not eat it. Starvation was better kept at bay with berries and grasses. Another thought that came unbidden and unchecked.

She set on her way, spear in hand and l'mo'rae on her shoulder. Its pelt would complement the bodice she wore, once she let the churning falls chew it to softness. More l'mo'raes meant more clothes, warmth and protection from the unceasing rain.

The white haze surprised her, holding her stride mid-step, the world disappeared, the ground turned cottony white as did the sky and the air. She couldn't see ahead or below, the fog was thick and yet it wasn't fog. She knew the place and yet she had never been there before. Something was supposed to be there. Someone… She couldn't remember. Unformed thoughts gently tapped at her mind, begging for an entry. She saw a shape within the mists. Was someone there? She remembered the hair. And yet she didn't. A shadow seemed to coalesce behind a curtain of clouds. Two blue stones. A name. Trip. "Trip?" she called. Her voice was strange to her. Trip! And then the pain came. A hot poker tore at her brain, throwing her to the ground. Holding the halves of her head as in the early days of the I'Ph'Lis, keening the pain away, but the clouds would not part, the mist grew more opaque, and the shape of Trip receded into the white softness.

The rough ground pressed against her back slowly brought her back. Her spear and the l'mo'rae were still there, waiting to be grabbed. She lowered her gaze from where she had been staring. At the stars? She couldn't remember.

xxx

Elderweiss's hand shot out, grabbing her by the elbow as she walked by. The old woman tasted the air around her before her white eyes drilled into the young one. "You used the Sighting." Her tone was accusatory.

T'Pol shook her head, unsure what Elderweiss was talking about. "No I didn't." She saw from the corner of her eyes other tribe members get up from where they'd been seeing to their daily lives. She looked all around. They were coming to her, called by the mental summons from Elderweiss. She backed away from them, aware there was nowhere to run. "I didn't" T'Pol repeated.

Elderweiss had grabbed her wrists, powering through the young alien's short-term memories. There was nothing there. The young one's mind was strong at keeping things hidden, even from herself. She didn't release her hold. The young alien may not remember how but she had used the Sighting. Of that Elderweiss had no doubt. Using the Sighting was forbidden. The G'Qe'Nkaa hadn't grown an arm-span yet but today the tribe would partake of the I'Ph'Lis again. Extra share would be given to the young alien, her atonement to be found in the awful reaction.

If she used the Sighting again, Elderweiss would have no choice but to do what needed to be done. It had sometimes happened in the time of the Elderweisses of old and she had their memories to behold. She sighed at the thought.

xxx

There wasn't going to be any induction.

Whoever had planned the ceremonies for Brolains's adhesion to the Federation had forgotten a teensy weensy detail. The event was of such importance that Starfleet had taken its flagship, its pride ship, away from a critical mission in the Ceplephus quadrant, even if Starfleet didn't exactly know what said mission entailed, to send them at warp five to Feurata for what were supposed to be the initiation ceremonies. Except that someone had forgotten to invite the Romulans. And the Romulans were not happy about it, no siree bob, not happy at all. Okay, even cutting the sarcasm to the slightest twinge, whoever had planned the induction was a complete idiot or idiots who needed a quick lesson in intrastellar politics.

It was obvious they had fallen into a trap. A neatly laid trap. And Archer didn't like it one tiny bit.

And liked it even less that they had shown Enterprise to be an ineffectual pawn. Drag Starfleet's prize vessel to Feurata and then show the world what happens to those who would join the Federation, show them how the Federation and Enterprise are powerless to defend one of their allies. Two birds with one stone. And add abuse to injury by capturing one of the Starfleet officers attending the ceremony and taking him hostage.

At least that's what Archer was hoping. The capturing part had been caught on the assembly hall cameras, which was the only reason he was not out of his mind with worry already. The hostage part is what he really, really hoped was what was in the Romulans' mind. Based on what they could guess of the attackers through the smoke, especially the close-up of the one firing at Trip before throwing him over his shoulder, those had been Romulans.

But why?

The Romulans had been quiet all these years. Why would they be coming out of their lairs to wreak havoc on this sector of space? Why now? Feurata may be close to Romulan space, but so were another half-dozen worlds who were already part of the Federation. For them to react now didn't make sense. There was no trade pacts with Romulus, nothing that would point to any importance of Feurata to the Empire's plans.

And it just didn't seem internally coherent that the Romulans would try and start a war. If anything, both sides had been warily eyeing each other since V'Las was thrown out of office. They had suspected Romulan involvement with the drones, but the drones had failed and since then Romulus had been staying on one side of their Empire line, the Federation on the other.

So why now?

The beep of the incoming transmission came to interrupt his speculation and he accepted the communication, the screen lighting up with a half-dozen Starfleet admirals in a war room. "Captain Archer," Admiral Toussaint spoke first, he who wouldn't even let Archer know he had stopped the search for T'Pol, "any news?"

" _Any news_?!' Less than twenty-four hours before they were watching the induction ceremonies and now they had scores of dead diplomats on Brolain, a missing Chief Engineer, and a captain and a crew about to jump out of their skin if they were not told to go find their friend. Archer made a concerted effort to remain calm.

"Not since we last spoke, sir." Archer nodded at the entire assembly. "Request permission to go after the Romulans. There is nothing else we can do on Feurata at this time." He was truly hoping to get the go-ahead. Partly because if he didn't, he wasn't sure what he was going to do. Fortunately, it was a question he wouldn't have to answer this time around.

"I agree, but I meant have you heard from the Romulans, any demands?" Toussaint corrected the misunderstanding.

Archer thinned his lips. "Nothing at all. Which is why I'd like to proceed with all due haste."

"Those are your orders, Captain." Toussaint eyed the captain on the screen not too unkindly. The admiralty was surprised and worried about the abduction of one of their chief engineers. This chief engineer in particular. They had a bunch of Starfleet analysts pulling a fine-tooth comb through his background, everything he'd done since he'd lost his first tooth. Trying to find out how badly he could hurt the Federation if he revealed everything he knew, technically and otherwise. Trying to sort out whether there might be some collusion, if perhaps he was a traitor. After all, there was a mark in his file that he preferred the company of aliens.

xxx

Soval heard the frequency of the engines change, the soft vibration gaining a pronounced bass range. Why was the ship falling out of warp? They were not even at the Ceplephus galaxy yet. He roused himself from his meditation, stepped into the corridor just as his aide was exiting her abode. T'Agad was this one. Their names all blended across time, T'Agad, T'Arjal, Strun, Veikor, T'Lpoth, Jirkil… and those were only the past thirty years. They came, they learned, they left, for Vulcan usually, away from the spoliation of Earth and emotions all around, to re-steep themselves in Vulcan logic and tradition. Most of them usually did. There was one in particular whom he hadn't named and who now may be lost to her people.

He wanted to find her. It was only logical. On it rested an oath not to be broken. And the sense, like T'Pau, that hers was the path of the future, or at least an option made available to her culture.

The ship shook and he and T'Agad looked at each other in question. In Soval's mind, telescoped the recently read communiqué warning of energy clusters at the edge of Romulan space, the path of their flight to Ceplephus, his having chosen a craft for maneuverability over defensibility, and the pre-meditation news that Feurata had been attacked.

He was already rushing towards the bridge, T'Agad behind him, when the next shockwave sent them sprawling, him against the suddenly leaning wall and her to the ground.

Old reflexes took over and Soval quickly retreated back to the weapons closet in the hall. His hand was on the latch when the corridor lit up with phaser fire. He tore the door open, grabbed a rifle, shot back, and ran further of the way. The hall was narrow, his attackers would beware, proceeding step by step, unaware of the short-cut between his study and the bridge. The odds he could affect the outcome of the battle were impossibly slim but access to the bridge may change the order of things. Wars had turned over smaller stuff.

He stepped on the bridge unseen, the five helmeted attackers their back turned to him. Romulans, his blood already screamed. One of them turned around just as he his finger found the trigger and lunged at him, deflecting the fire and struggling for the phaser. The other four jumped in the melee and Soval was quickly overcome, getting punished in the process. When he was finally brought to his knees, arms twisted behind his back and legs painfully locked, the centurion in charge walked over, a teasing smirk twisting his face.

"Ah, so there is the ambassador." Soval only response was to glare, a cracked lip smearing blood on his face, one of his eyes closing fast from the repeated strike of an unmarked fist.

The centurion took a step back and rammed his weapon as hard as he could against Soval's shoulder. They all heard bone crack while the ambassador went limp from the pain and the blow. It was in a green haze of distress and pain that he heard the Romulan say "Take him. Kill the others."

"What about the woman?"

Another twisted smile came to the centurion's face. "Take her too. We can always find a use for her."

Soval would have like to plead for his other aide's life, who was going to Vulcan in advance of his Time. His demise would kill two unless warning was advanced. And the pilot, and the crew, unlucky actors too quickly to meet their fate.

But a weapon sizzled and darkness descended before he could argue against the waste.

xxx


	8. The Forest 8 - The Aftermath

xxx

"Don't lose them." Archer's voice sounded curt in the silence of the bridge. Reed didn't answer, there was nothing to say. As if he wanted to lose the engine signature they had picked up from the attacker's ship. A single ship. Malcolm was too busy to think but he stored the information away, to be later considered.

Archer sullenly watched the screen. He would have felt a lot better if he had his science officer at his side to pick out the right trail among so many. He would have felt a lot safer if he had his chief engineer to coax the engines into giving all they could. But there he was, on a hot Romulan trail, without his science head and without his expert engineer, might as well have been fighting a bear with a hand tied in this back.

They had managed to track the signature among the many around Feurata, a little bit of _deja vu_ all over again. But they were coming onto a morass of warp trails and only luck would get them through.

"It doesn't make sense..." Reed turned to Archer, a scowl on his face. The captain knew Reed. If something didn't make sense to Reed it was worth paying attention to. "What do you mean?" he hushed.

"This signature we're getting. It doesn't look Romulan." Archer was going to ask Reed how he knew, thought better of it. He could always pretend the man kept up on his reading.

"But it is the attacker's engine trail?" he confirmed.

"Yes. It's just strange, it doesn't have the usual markers." Reed answered.

"Explanations?" The questions was broadly asked though he knew only Malcolm would dare answer.

"Perhaps they camouflaged their engines to not arouse suspicion." No, that was Hoshi. Archer was pleased she was the one who came through. Silence was her answer as they all realized they were out of their depth when it came to engines and their trails. Archer hit the intercom. "Bridge to Hess."

"Hess here," she didn't say another word, aware her talking style was better left unheard.

"Could the Rolumans camouflage their engine trail?"

Hess became quiet as her mind went through the engineering riddle, wishing Trip were here. It could be done, anything could be done, but it would be complicated and costly and what was the point when the attack had been in broad daylight. There were better ways to throw a trace. She shook her head. "Technically, yes, they could captain. Whether it would make sense is something else entirely. It's complex and costly, and everyone knows the attackers were Romulans." Reed's head went up, his eyes narrowed, a thought had come to him but he needed to mull it first.

"Thanks, Hess, Archer out." He pursed his lips in annoyance at the fact he didnt have an answer. "Slowly, Travis, we don't want to lose them." The visuals on the screen looked like knitting wool kitten-unraveled, the single line of the Romulan transport disappearing in a thicket of other trails. They would be lucky if they could find it again on the other side. More time wasted. Reed was at the science station with a newbie ensign, the two of them leaning over, intent on not losing the trace. Archer closed his fists, feeling anew the frustration they went through when looking for T'Pol, a soup of engine trails and not a clue.

xxx

"What is it Travis?" Archer asked, seeing the young pilot look at his console then at the screen, back at his console, then shake his head. They had found the engine signature on the other side of the mess and had been tracking it since, at low impulse, they couldn't afford to lose it.

"It doesn't make sense, sir." The ensign replied. "They're not going towards Romulan space."

Reed was at the science station and he stepped down into the bridge well. "Can you figure out where they're going?"

The ensign shook his head. "Not at this point. But if they'd gone to Romulan space, they would have already tacked to port. Instead they're curving astarboard."

Reed stood were he was, deep in thought, considering. Archer was going to ask him when the intercom beeped. "Starfleet's hailing you, sir" Hoshi's warning floated in the bridge.

"Let me guess, for my eyes only?" His tone was dry, his affect petulant. What did they want now, he would call if there was anything to be told. "In my ready room, Ensign." Archer pivoted out of his chair.

xxx

He could only stare at Admiral Toussaint in disbelief. "What did you say?"

"You heard me, Captain. We just received word that the transport that was taking Ambassador Soval to Ceplephus is not answering hails. They've been out of contact for two days and Vulcan has requested our help."

"We're tracking the Feurata attackers." Toussaint knew they were going after the Romulans. And Trip. Perhaps that would remind him.

"I understand that, Captain." Toussaint sighed in the manner of one who wondered why such things always happened to him. "The Navarre is a week away in the Ceplephus galaxy and you're the closest ship. You will go to the last known coordinates and see if you can find anything. At warp five, it will take a few hours, and then you can resume your search."

Archer could feel the anger rising in him. "May I remind you, Admiral, that the Romulans have taken Trip."

"May I remind you, Captain, that you have your orders." Toussaint was seething. "And that your duty as a Starfleet captain is to follow orders! Trip would understand that." He suddenly lowered his voice. "Listen, Jon, I understand how you feel, how all of us would feel. We already have operatives in the Roluman space, we'll spring Trip but it could be a long-term effort. You're already one day behind the attackers, another few hours won't make a difference. A detour to find out what happened to Soval's ship won't take too much time. Then you'll be back on your way. Hopefully it's just a broken comm system."

Archer watched Admiral Toussaint's face slowly disappear from the screen, his jaw set. _'Hopefully, it's just a broken comm system_." Did he realize it was Vulcans he was talking about?! They probably had double redundancy on every last piece of their comm system.

It proved that in the larger game of space, an ambassador was worth more than an engineer. He didn't like it but there was nothing he could do about it.

xxx

He just knew it. Archer got off his chair and walked closer to the screen.

Of course. He just knew it. How could it have been otherwise.

Those were the coordinates and that was the Vulcan transport. Very recognizable Vulcan transport, one of their smaller ships, fleet and dynamic, not many weapons on board. Soval didn't care much about show. Probably wished he'd chosen more of a warrior ship, given the weirdly tilted angle of the vessel and the blackened hull where the engines used to lay. Not that weapons would have made much of a difference, not in an encounter with ...

"Reed, what does the engine signature looks like?" He heard himself say.

The security officer walked over to the science station, bending over the display with the ensign there. When he looked up again his eyes were rounded with surprise. "This was a Romulan bird of prey. The ship at Feurata was definitely not Romulan."

Archer looked at the stricken ship floating on the screen. "Let's go in, find out if anyone's still alive. Hoshi, you have the con."

"What if there's a Romulan bird of prey waiting within striking distance?" Reed asked.

"Good point. Go to red alert." Archer mechanically answered, caution was always a good idea. But somehow, he didn't think so. He couldn't explain why. Perhaps because something was off. It hit him just as he thought it. Two attacks, in each case a single ship, one of them not Romulan. At the worst, these were frontier forays from badly disciplined Romulan commanders, and one true thing about Romulan commanders was that they were not badly disciplined.

xxx

"I've informed the Vulcan authorities." Phlox's tone was somber as he closed the last body tray.

Archer nodded, deep in thought. The scene on the ship had been ghastly, dead bodies and blood everywhere. Of Soval, not a trace. Reed and his security team were still on the Vulcan vessel, collecting blood samples, trying to determine who else may have been spared. He would send the report to Starfleet when they were back on their way.

The wall comm beeped and he went to hit it. "Hoshi to Captain Archer. The security team is back in the shuttlebay. Lieutenant Reed is on his way to Sickbay."

"Thanks, Hoshi, I'll wait for him there." He and Phlox left the morgue.

"There were seven people on the vessel, we only found five bodies." Reed summarized. "We did a sweep of all the walls and flat surfaces, we did find traces of blood on the bridge, Soval's blood."

"Who else is missing?"

"One of his aides, name is…" Reed consulted his padd. "T'Agad. A woman. I've sent word to Starfleet for a full background check."

Archer nodded. So much for his plan to delay. He palmed the wall intercom "Archer to the Bridge. Ensign Mayweather, start tracking the signature of the Romulan bird of prey, impulse speed."

Reed looked at him in surprise. Weren't they supposed to go back where they were? Archer heard the unspoken question. "Let's just say I have a feeling about this."

xxx

The soft vibration of the ship had stopped. Trip tried to listen for any sounds that would let him know what was going on. In the depth of space, that was a tall order.

He knew he was on a large transport, large enough for a crew of thirty. About the number of attackers at Feurata, but still only one ship. He'd wakened up with a splitting headache, that was hours ago, at least, and his head still hurt as he put his ear to the door of the cell, trying to listen for a way out. He needed to get off this ship, find Archer and tell him T'Pol was alive. And then they needed to find her. That was fairly easy. All he'd ever wanted in life reduced to a two-step plan. Now if he could just get off this ship…

Trip heard the footsteps coming to his door and hurried to lay down on the bottom bunk in the cell. Smaller than the brig on Enterprise but that was the first visit he'd had since he'd woken up and he didn't want them to know he was awake.

The door swoosh open then footsteps came in. A second pair of footsteps sounded right behind and Trip groaned inwardly. One Romulan he could perhaps take, with the effect of surprise. Two was one too many. Now there was no choice but to keep his eyes closed. The footsteps came close to his head. He heard nothing, he felt nothing, except for the sharp pain near his neck.

xxx

Trip came to with a gasp, wondering where he was, wincing at the pain in his shoulder and rubbing at his neck. His head whipped around. It was the same cell, still no light, three cots spread in a horseshoe and three bunk layers. A cell for nine and he was only one. He wanted to get up but he had a kink to work out, carefully rotated his neck in all directions.

He snapped to a sitting position, there was someone else in the cell. The white of an eye watched him through the darkness. An alien, for sure. Friend or foe, that was obscure. He quickly went through possible approaches. Just asking 'Is someone there?' and letting them talk back. What if the alien couldn't talk? Second was to walk over and touch. Some people didn't like to be touched and he didn't want to give up any part of him. That brought him to the third on the list, whistling off-key until the other begged, but he didn't feel like whistling, down and out about T'Pol. Fourth was to loudly clear his throat, hum, do anything that would let the alien know he was there. As if he didn't, that eye had been looking at him. Fifth was to just sit there, mindfully, until someone shed light on this. No pun intended. That last approach felt the best, and wait he did, making a show of stretching and settling himself as in the lap of luxury, without a care in the world.

Minutes crept by. His eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness all around until, first, he could make out a shape sitting on the cot. Second, the shape acquired legs and arms and a head, it was humanoid and Trip felt a lot safer. Third was the hair, a silver shine to it, and older… man, from the looks of it. Trip hesitated, man or woman, the darkness could lie. His quick check downward revealed a robe, and the lettering on the cowl had a familiar shine. Vulcan! There was a Vulcan in the cell with him. It didn't matter whether man or woman.

He cleared his throat, embarrassed at his accent. "Who are you?" He asked in Vulcan. He didn't really expect an answer, and none came. Blushingly realizing that he used the wrong form, he knew better than to behave like a four-year-old child. If he could charm T'Pol's mother, after a fashion, he could certainly hold his own with an unknown person. He tried again, this time doing the ta'al, part of him wondering about the logic when it couldn't be seen in the dark. "Live long and prosper."

There was a sigh, the white of the eye moved away from him.

"I know you." The reply was in English. Trip frowned slightly. He knew the voice, he had heard it before. "You are Charles Tucker the Third, Chief Engineer aboard Enterprise."

Trips' eyebrows almost flew off his head. Who on Vulcan knew him that well? As soon as he thought hit, the realization followed. "Ambassador Soval."

What the hell was the Vulcan ambassador on Earth doing in a cell aboard a Romulan vessel?

"What're you doing here?" As if they'd just run into each other at the corner store...

"The question applies both ways."

Trip had to give it to the man, it was strange that they'd both be caged on the same ship. And because he knew that Soval may be the holder of state secrets, whereas he, the engineer aboard the Federation finest starship, only knew what he knew, he proceeded to share Feurata and the Brolains and what happened there, not forgetting that T'Pol was alive, he knew where she was, well not exactly where but what it was called, and he needed to go and save her.

Silence descended on the cell and Trip wondered if he'd put the ambassador to sleep. But Soval finally spoke. "You say the men who attacked Feurata were Romulans?" There was a strange edge to his voice.

"Just as Romulan as the transport we're on." Trip saw the eye look at him, but then Soval looked away. He wondered why the Vulcan only opened one eye. "Where d'you think they're taking us?" Trip asked when the silence again became unwieldy.

"I am trying to resolve why they didn't kill us instantly." Came the answer, and he wished he hadn't asked.

"Yeah, I'm not exactly high-priced merchandise when it comes to hostages. You, on the other hand…" Trip fell silent, wondering.

"There are only two of us." Soval commented. "You represent the Federation and I represent Vulcan. You obviously were the highest-ranking Starfleet operative on hand, as I was the highest-ranking Vulcan. The question to ask is who would benefit from holding us both, and how our treatment might further their cause. The two are interrelated." He paused. "I fear the outcome may not be pleasant. For either of us."

A chill came over Trip at the thought. His mind refused to dwell too long on their prospects. "D'you think they'll ever give us any light in this joint?" He drawled, the slang expression keeping his feelings at bay. He saw the raised eyebrow in his mind's eye, the longing for T'Pol like a knife to his chest. He looked around the empty cell. Now if he could just get off this ship…

xxx

When they had brought Soval to the cell, the Human occupant was passed out in sleep, hadn't wakened up in spite of the commotion. He was surprised by the familiar scent but the darkness prevented him from seeing who was there. Vulcans just didn't do well without light. He had waited for the Human to wake up, going through memory banks in search of that elusive smell.

Finally the Human had moved, first discreetly and then with much assurance as he tried to figure who was sharing his cell. It had been an interesting experiment, to wait silently and see how the Human would react. A trait that had proven so useful already in the circles of embassy life. He had learned a lot from it. This was someone physical, with a great need for movement, and yet someone who could control its impulsivity and harness it in response to a situation, a mark of intelligence. The Human didn't know if he was friend or foe yet had chosen to wait for a better option. There was some humor in his pretense of absolute relaxation and Soval had been entertained. Somewhat.

He hadn't responded when the engineer first spoke, out of sheer stupefaction that it would be T'Pol's bondmate sharing his cell. His lapse could be forgiven, he was badly hurt and controlling the pain was evermore taxing. His control had been almost breached a second time when he learned from the engineer that his ward was still alive.

He set his mind to compute which part of him made him more emotional, his advancing age, too much contact with Earth civilization, or his compromised physical state. The mathematical calculations would be a pleasant distraction to what already promised to be an extended wait.

Another part of his brain computed the probability that the engineer was on the other side, still ill-defined though Soval thought he knew. The officer's presence in his cell was so fortuitous, it begged the question of whether it happened by chance. Soval had waited for the Human to talk, prompting him here and there with a well-placed thought. His questions were a test, the quick intake of breath, the rise in the engineer's hormonal scent proof that the possibilities had not been known. The presence of T'Pol's bondmate was a fluke. How unfortunate for him. For them.

Still blind in the darkness, Soval listened to the engineer physically fret, probably unaware that he was broadcasting his mental state. He would meditate again, hope for some success, his broken shoulder prevented both rest and healing trances. There was nothing to be done yet except try to elucidate what had brought both of them to this state.


	9. The Forest 9 - The Betrayal

_**Enterprise**_

"Starfleet's hailing you, sir" Hoshi swiveled in her seat and looked sadly at Archer, expressing the feelings he couldn't show.

"Put them on, Ensign." There was nothing Starfleet would say that the crew didn't know. Once he had alerted them, they had told him, as expected, to stand by and track the Romulan bird of prey while they let T'Pau know. Soon there would be an armada of ships converging onto them to try and elucidate what happened. And then they could go back to finding Trip. And T'Pol. He wouldn't let them forget.

Admiral Toussaint appeared on the screen. "Captain Archer." He seemed to gather his thoughts as if he weren't sure where to go. Archer had a sense he had just talked to T'Pau, she could do that to you, with a word and a bow. "Can I have a word with you alone?"

Archer exchanged glances with Reed who raised an eyebrow T'Pol fashion, making his heart clench in pain. First T'Pol, now Trip, if he stopped and thought, he wouldn't get started again.

Ten minutes later, he was back on the bridge. "Lieutenant Reed, a word with you." Hoshi and Travis turned without being seen, wondering what it could have been.

Reed stayed standing until with a word and a hand Archer bade him seat and face him. The Captain was troubled, that much was certain. Finally he looked up at the security man. "There is trouble on Vulcan." Reed eyed him silently, what did he mean? Soval's disappearance was not what it seemed? Was the ambassador somehow compromised? He'd thought the old warrior was too wise for such schemes. Though with Vulcans one never knew, still waters ran deep and Vulcans were ever still.

It was the Section 31 man who leaned in and listened, his senses on high alert. When Archer was done, he stretched back and nodded once and more. It all nicely meshed with what he'd started to suspect. It was not the ambassador. It was much more.

Archer had gotten up, was looking out his window. "Starfleet wants us to stay put, keep tracking the Romulan trail." He sighed, stood taller. "They're sending ships but it takes time. So is Vulcan on order of T'Pau." He looked at Reed. "How long until we can't find warp trails anymore?"

The Section 31 man eyed Archer through narrowed eyes. "Perhaps the search can be cloned."

Archer turned to his security chief with puzzled interest. "What are you suggesting?"

"There are sensors on the shuttles, not as powerful but we can recalibrate. A shuttle would go more slowly, have to keep closer to the trail." Reed paused. Archer waited, he knew there was more. "We're only hours away from where we stopped the Feurata search. We could leave a shuttle and a crew here, go there and set a shuttle on that trail, then come back and pick up until replacements show up. Less time would be lost, perhaps not at all."

Archer silently considered. Toussaint had not specifically said how he wanted Enterprise to track the vessel. "Go get ready," he said, and turned back to the window.

xxx

 _ **The Transport**_

Trip woke up to bright light shining in his eyes, swearing under his breath. Then he jolted awake and sat bolt upright. A harsh glare was showing every corner of the cell. He couldn't complain. Finally, someone had turned the lights on.

He rubbed his hands over his face, chasing the remnants of sleep, and looked over at Soval. And froze. The man looked like he'd been on the losing side of a prizefight. And perhaps he had. It explained the one eye that was silently staring back at him, the other one closed from so much swelling. It looked like he wasn't thrilled to have Trip there. Trip was a little upset at the thought. One would think he'd welcome having someone else in the cell. On the other hand, it could simply be that he wasn't feeling well. Trip took in the way Soval awkwardly held one arm tight to his chest. Whoever he'd fought had done a number of him. That was somewhat of a shock, Vulcans were incredibly hard to best. Take T'Pol who was a lot smaller and lighter than many Vulcan males. She could still easily dominate him, even at the gym. Actually, the only time he'd seen her licked was at the Forge, and that was because of an encounter with other _ his eyes popped open at the thought.

In one swift move he was sitting on the edge of his cot, eyes narrowed at Soval. It all made sense. "They're Vulcan!" His tone was accusatory, his eyes challenged Soval to deny. The ambassador looking back at him wordlessly. Trip went on. "They're Vulcan, not Romulans! That's why I could understand what they were saying when they took me!"

Vulcans had attacked the induction ceremonies on Feurata? The thought made his mind reel. The world had gone mad. "Why?!" His tone made it clear that there'd better be an answer. Trip waited, tensely leaning forward.

The older man looked at him. "I do not believe all of them were Vulcan."

"You mean there were also Romulans?" Of course. He'd recognized the helmets. Trip shook his head, this was complete madness. "Since when did Vulcans and Romulans start working together?!"

He sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose. Could it be this was just a dream, that he would soon wake up? He opened his eyes again. Nope. Soval was still there. "Can you take it from the top?" He saw Soval look up at the top bunk over his head, would have chuckled but for the anger. "It's a Terran expression, it means can you explain things from the beginning." He could imagine saying it to T'Pol, it just made him miss her even more. He was stuck on this ship, unable to let anyone know she was alive, because of - Vulcans?! Anger washed over him all over again.

Soval looked away. How much did he know that he could tell the young man? His thoughts went back to T'Pau who couldn't utter what had not been proven. Beyond the shadows of what was truth and what was not, there was much that was known on Vulcan and not shared. If he said too much and the Human survived, would T'Pau's future hand be bound? On the other hand, there was no chance his disappearance had been met with silence. T'Pau wouldn't be moved only by her esteem for Soval, all of Vulcan cried over every soul it lost and there were a handful that had died. She would weigh present independence against future cost, that was only logical, and choose to share what she knew, with much left unsaid to avoid any presumption and assumption. He would follow her discretion and state only his conviction.

He looked back at the young Human. "There are still Vulcan factions loyal to V'Las regime."

Trip spent a few seconds figuring out what the old man was saying, and more importantly, what he was not saying. But he had too many questions and they came as if from a firehose. "What do you mean loyal to V'Las regime? Are you saying V'Las was working with the Romulans? Where are the Vulcan factions? On Vulcan? But why attack Feurata? And you were not on Feurata, how come you're here." Trip's brain was going faster then he could process the words, leaving him on the edge of stuttering. "What the hell is going on?" He finally said. That last question covered all the bases. He looked around at the cell, another piece falling into place. "This ship. It's Vulcan, isn't it?"

"The design is obsolete."

That's what T'Pol had said about Tolaris's ship. Of course. Vulcan had been space-faring for hundreds of years. There must be all kind of junkers still in operation. Trip looked around again, realization slowly downing. "This was not meant as a cell, was it? What kind of ship is this?"

"A transport. For commandos." Soval replied.

"Commandos." That reminded him of Paan Mokar. "Why? What are they trying to do?"

That, Soval could answer even if much of it was supposition. It would be no more nor less than anything the Federation would be already reflecting upon.

xxx

 ** _Vulcan_**

T'Pau stood staring out the windows of the council chambers. So much death had been ordered from that floor, so many lives wasted, starting with the Syrannites, her comrades, more peaceful than them could hardly be found. All of them mowed down by V'Las delusions and intrigue, and the rest of his cabinet, like so many fools, so many lambs brought to slaughter, unable to think and see beyond the narrow bounds of efficiency. The same wouldn't be said of her, mistakes she wouldn't make, first, because she had no delusions of grandeur, second, because her oath was to Vulcan above even her own, third, because she hand picked members of her council for wisdom and excellence.

With Soval, she felt safe, he had been a warrior and couldn't be fooled by the mention of threats that had not yet arisen. His allegiance had of necessity been to the Vulcan High Command, and yet he had managed to never lose an associate to their paranoid control. He had come close once or twice, his ward even almost lost, but each time managed to deflect and avoid. With him there was no deep-set aversion to other races, he didn't wrap every decision in layers of self-serving logic. Respect for tradition was where he began, never dictating the ending.

Without him, her path forward was less certain, she didn't have the wherewithal that came from a long life experience. She was coming into her rule at a time of great diffidence. V'Las had abused Vulcans' difference, dividing and raising ones against the others, twisting and turning the truth as befit his governance. She needed to gather them all under the single standard of what it meant to be Vulcan, to lead them onto the renewed path to Surak, sift through their barbaric nature for the kernel of logic, the thirst for peaceful unity.

Without Soval, her council was less strong. Without a strong council, the forces that would pull Vulcan asunder were evenly matched to her. And because she was Vulcan, born to analyze and measure, she knew that was the very reason behind Soval's being taken. To deprive her of his logical counsel, undermine support for her cause. She would have to look long and hard to find another of his ken and a lot could happen while she tried and tried again.

It was logical that her enemies would want Soval gone. That would be the first blow. And to further destabilize her, they would make his death long and slow.

She held little hope that Federation allies would find Soval. They may be expert fighters and Archer had shown his mettle on the Forge, but it was Vulcans they were going after, augmented by Romulans' violent thrust.

On that day, looking out at the Vulcan red skies, she resolved that henceforth steel would be what she was made of. Soval's death would meet her steely resolve. No more than steel would she ever bend and give, and no reversal of fortune would ever make her yield.

xxx

 ** _The Transport_**

Time dwindled by.

Trip was lying on his cot, all he could think about was how T'pol was alive, needing him in some alien place, and he couldn't go there. Couldn't even let anyone know about it.

Soval was sitting on his cot, immobile. Trip figured he was meditating though the older man didn't seem to be meditating but to be waiting.

The door to the cell suddenly opened and a body was brought in and dropped on the third cot. Another Vulcan. Trip did a double take. A woman. Obvious signs of abuse, tightly coiled on herself. Why didn't they bring her in there with them when Soval came in? The answer imposed itself, his mind loudly protesting that no, these were Vulcans, it couldn't be. But Soval had told him Romulans and Vulcans were working together and that his attackers had been Romulan. Trip thought of T'Pol and his heart sank for the young victim.

Soval didn't say a word, got up, stiffened with pain, and hobbled to where the woman laid on her cot, eyes fiercely shut, gathered into a tight ball. He slowly wrestled out of his ambassador robe and with tender logic laid it over the huddled form. Trip saw him address her, though he couldn't hear them and she nodded, eyes closed. Then Soval was touching her face and the woman's ragged breath eventually smoothed itself, her relaxing limbs talking of a rest lost and found.

Soval exhaled forcefully then got up again from where he had been leaning, slowly, swaying for a while once he was standing, eyes closed, face turned to the ceiling. Trip got a sense of disgust and anger, then the older man stilled his face and came back to his cot, limping heavily, arm held tightly to his chest. The bruises on his face were vivid. Shorn of the robe, stains of dried blood darkened his tunic.

Suppression might be what was called for but Trip would have none of that Vulcan logic. "You're hurt!" He blurted out. Much worse than he had thought when Soval was sitting. Anger vied with concern and concern won him over.

Soval shrugged with a raised eyebrow. "These are flesh wounds." Trip understood it to be opposite to the young woman's wounds. He wished he could offer some kind of solace, talk to her, comfort her, but his youth in age would make it offensive, his difference would make her defensive. There was nothing he could add to the older man's care. He went back to waiting, heartbroken for the woman, concerned for the Vulcan.

xxx

 _ **T'Agad Story**_

The shock of hitting the far wall had left her breathless. She had turned to her captor. "You are mistaken." It would be quickly resolved, Romulans were her blood brothers.

The centurion cold smile had twisted his face anew. "I think _you_ were mistaken." He laughed a short hard laugh. "Not that our first choice would be a Vulcan, but we've been too many months in space without the comfort of a woman." At that, T'Agad understood the scope of her error and she shrieked and she lunged and the room disappeared in a blinding burst of agony, before her torn body became an hourglass of pain, minute upon minute, hour upon hour, how long did it last, at least a full day, two perhaps, and then she was thrown onto a cot in some cell, huddled unto herself in sibilant ache.

There was the smell of others in the cell, one new and harsh, one well-known and thus far hated, none as repulsive as the smells and the stenches indelibly seared in her brain and conchae. The echoes of their stench brought a gag to her throat, the memory of their scent nauseated her gut. Her body in a tight ball, her mind unraveled, she grabbed at elusive rules that once held turned to sand. Axioms and sayings, instructions from her parents, everything she'd learned, everything she thought, empty dust in an empty space.

 _There is no pain_. There was pain. The mind itself was pain. How could one suppress pain when pain was the core. Pain was who she was, pain was what she was made of. Suppress the pain and she would be no more.

 _Logic_. Logic claimed two sundered halves could reunite. There was no logic. Logic had fooled the universe. Logic was illusion cruelly laughing at those it had ensnared.

 _Loyalty_. Loyalty was betrayal, betrayal was loyalty. Starting with her, what had she done? The burnt offering on the sacrificial altar was her own self, mind broken, body torn open. Loyalty was a sham, she was a sham.

 _Cast out fear_. Fear was all knowing. Logic fled in front of fear. Irrational was the answer. Irrational ruled the world. The world was fear. The other was fear. Her heart jumped at the presence of another. Panic took over. Stricken, she listened to the coming footstep, fear claiming every fiber, whimpering within herself. The footstep was slow and measured, how she had hated it so, now its regular rhythm held promise of the well expected.

 _Shame_. Shame was her cousin. The other half of her was shame. Sister of another mother. She couldn't move, frozen in fear, unable to look at him. Him. He was the one she wanted destroyed. To reach her end she had lied, stolen, and thieved. Him. Let it not be him who saved her grace. Not him. She couldn't bear to look at him. Her only solace was that he did not know.

 _Warmth_. The weight of the cloth was almost too much to bear. She would have jumped but her body wouldn't. The cloth swaddled her in newborn comfort, the hated smell a welcome offering. Tightly held muscles imperceptibly slackened.

There was a touch and she whimpered anew, a silent sound caught in her mind, caught in her throat. No more contact, she wanted no more contact, her skin crawling in revulsion, not of this one, of anyone. The touch feathered her brow, her father used to touch her so, and then a strange calm, the pain was there, the shame, the fear, the betrayal and the betrayer, the anger that wasn't hers, and the logic, within the illogic of what happened.

She felt moisture upon her cheek, upon her sleep.


	10. The Forest 10 - The Rebels

_Notes from the author:_

 _This story is finally finding its groove._

 _I wrote a story a year ago. When I started putting it together for posting, I realized it was not that good and was much more unfinished than I remembered. It took a lot of work to bring it back from the brink. (I actually went so far as to draw the positions of the various ships over the span of time of the story to figure out the plot). I now feel a lot more hopeful about it, about two thirds of the action in. The last third could still evolve._

 _Also, and the credit here rests entirely with Shan Jeniah, I became aware of the May story a day challenge. I have been incorporating treatments in response to the story a day challenge, after a fashion, since Chapter 8. (I skipped the early days and am a couple of days behind)._

* * *

 _ **The Forest**_

It happened as she was going off to hunt, her daily work these days, one of the top hunters of the tribe, Vulcan ears and stamina and the ability to deduce where animals might lay. She would not eat what she killed, the I'Ph'Lis hadn't been enough to make her forget, though she did eat what others killed, to do otherwise would have been a waste.

Elderweiss was sitting on the stump at the edge of the clearing, her natural throne, from where she could see what everyone was doing, and Sight them if anything should happen. She watched the young alien step out of her abode, rough planks aloft on some stones, a tight roof and woven walls helping against the rain. Helping but not blocking. The alien cleared her throat, every day a longer interval, then grabbed one of the spears against the wall with her wrapped hand and proceeded up the slope. Elderweiss was watching her go, this was one of her first outside forays since the forbidden Sighting, when the ensuing double dose of I'Ph'Lis had left her keening for days. She felt relief that the young alien was on her feet again, still in turmoil about what had to be done. Perhaps the young one was right, how much risk did a single member pose to the tribe?

It hall happened in a blink and yet it took forever. Elderweiss saw as in a dream the foot slip on some rain-shiny leaves, the young alien try and catch her balance and fail, the fall backwards on the spear that broke under her weight. She waited in worry for a heart beat and more, but the young one rolled off, unharmed, and got back to her feet. Elderweiss saw her ponder the broken spear for a while then walk the slope down to her wall and another lance, turn around and go on her way again. She knew the signs too well. The life force was ebbing, the I'Ph'Lis and the rain more than the alien could bear.

She felt a mind-call and turned around, saw Lidlbeut's mother staring from where she sat by her door. The mother had her gaze intently on the alien's back all the way until she walked into the boughs. Lidlbeut's mother knew of the alien, who in the tribe did not know, but she had never taken notice, aliens tended to come and go, pleasant enough, helpful at times, their Sighting not powerful enough for the I'Ph'Lis. The first one she had seen as a child, about the time she was of Lidlbeut's age, a hideous creature that the tribe was well rid of. She never understood her daughter's attraction to what was not I'shlin form. Fortunately, these aliens came and went, she wouldn't have to worry about foolish fancies of mates. Her daughter was small yet but soon she would curve out into shapes promising pleasure and children in the future. Nothing had happened today. The alien had fallen, gotten up and gone again. The spear was broken but more spears could be made. She saw Lidlbeut from the corner of her eye, intently watching the female alien walk away. There was no need to remonstrate the child. She soon would find her fancy broken when the alien passed on, and would eventually learn to only care for I'Shlin form.

Thinking she was too young and puny to be noticed yet on the cusp of mature growth, Lidlbeut had been watching the alien prepare to go. She knew her routine, liked to see if she could tell which of the spears she would select for the hunt. This day she had correctly predicted the tallest lance, pleased with herself until she saw the alien fall. She had never seen the alien fall before. The event was momentous and also auspicious. She waited for the alien to disappear up the trail and slowly walked to where the fall had happened. The spear laid broken in two halves, one of them long enough, the good one, with the sharpened edge. Lidlbeut hid it along her leg and took it to where nobody watched. There she could playact what she imagined the alien did, shadow hunting any leave that might stir, pretending small game was afoot, spear-throwing again and again for imagined loot. Ever since the alien had joined them and walked food back to the village for the children, Lidlbeut had idolized her and in her footsteps wanted to follow. Too young to be noticed, she thought, she could only hang in the shadows, watching, noting, her golden eyes aglow, the willowy alien and the lance and the throw. She too would bring back the dead l'mo'raes glistening with jewel-like blood, each a gift of such precious food.

Elderweiss mind-saw Lidlbeut train and spar and shadow-hunt, hidden from sight at the edge of the clearing. The alien was falling and Lidlbeut was growing. She would tell the alien she had a companion for the hunt. They both knew her strength was failing, but there was time enough to train Lidlbeut to hunt half as well as she did.

xxx

 _ **Transport**_

The cell door opened and five men walked in. Trip knew right away that Soval was right about their upcoming fate. Or the men would never have shown up without their helmets. These were Vulcan through and through. There had been a slight shift in the engine regime, nothing anyone could detect but an engineer and Trip knew the transport was warping ahead, separated from the bird of prey. The Romulans must all be gone.

Three of the men stepped forth to Soval's cot. He eyed them fiercely, old warrior wounded in the flesh only. They pretended to be impervious to his ire, too young and too insecure to fully pull it off. Trip was well trained in minute Vulcan signs, and he read their tensed stress in the corner of their eyes, chuckling to himself at the young pups that would confront the wily wolf.

"Take my to your leader." Soval's voice harked no dispute. The first man swallowed as he replied. "You will only meet him when it is your time to die. I am trained in the medical arts and came to make right any harm."

Soval's eyebrow climbed aloft as he addressed the speaker. "A healer you call yourself and yet you abet Romulans and terrorists and men without pride."

"The loftiest goals need the greater sacrifice." The healer stood taller.

"How much of a sacrifice is it when others pay the price?" Soval scoffed.

"It is a small price and their katra will be rewarded when they see Vulcans and Romulans finally reunited."

\- Their katra will be rewarded... A reward implies their choice was involved, how can there be reward where there was no action?

\- If they had chosen to act alongside us, they will share in the glory. If they had not, they deserve no pity.

\- You speak of Vulcans and Romulans reunited. You are aware that Romulans' way is to act against what they say." Soval eyed the healer with a look of contempt.

"In that they show themselves our brethren; guile was among Vulcan's tools of old.

\- That is what you aim for? Go back to a time without honor? Turn centuries back to brother killing brother? Remember that is how we were thrown asunder.

\- Together, we were a noble and proud race, and others were scared of us. Asunder we are too halves yearning for each other." The healer would not be convinced.

"We _are_ a noble and proud race." Soval retorted. "Do not forget that hatred of each half for the other is what led us asunder. How could others be scared of us, our hatred was self-directed."

"Enough. I came to heal." The healer busied himself with the tools of his trade, refusing eye contact and further discussion. Trip smirked inwardly. In doing so he had pretty much declared Soval's victory. He knew his type, weak men made strong through what they felt was a loftier cause. Or in this case logically deducted was a loftier cause.

"What about the woman?" Soval asked. Trip knew then that no conversation was over until Soval decided it was over.

The Vulcan healer shifted his weight nervously. "It shouldn't have happened. We met the bird of prey too late. The centurion explained it was a mistake."

"And you believed them?" Soval's tone left no doubt that only the most naïve operator would take that as face value. "I guess they also told you I assaulted them."

Trip froze. The Romulans had beat the living tar out of Soval just for the heck of it? And these were the people those Vulcans wanted as allies? He understood from what had been said, and it matched Soval's earlier obscure reference, that there were Vulcans who wanted an alliance with the Romulans.

The healer's gaze shifted down and to the left, letting Trip know he was deeply embarrassed. "I'll see what I can do."

"Take care of her first, and then attend to me." Soval didn't move, his tone both a command and a hand motion. The healer and his two aides walked to the cot where the Vulcan woman lay, still asleep. She suddenly opened her eyes, saw the men converging on her couch, and started screaming. But one of the aides was faster and already had his hand at her neck's juncture. Her scream was cut short as the nerve pinch rendered her unconscious. Trip couldn't see what was going on but he could hear the whir of the regenerator. The treatment seemed to take forever. At long last, the healer looked up and stepped away, motioning to the men to cover the woman anew with the ambassador's robe before walking back to Soval.

"That is all I could do. She needs further treatment."

"Is her life in jeopardy?"

"Without further treatment, eventually it will be, but there is time."

"Why is she in a cell? You have enough with us." Soval's question was addressed at the two men who had stayed stationed at the door, obviously to prevent any thought of escape, as if either Soval or T'Agad were in a shape to try for freedom or Trip didn't know any better.

Neither of the men replied, as if they hadn't heard the question. The healer had the grace to look embarrassed. Soval eyed him coldly. "You would kill her to hide the fact Romulans broke their word? This is the lofty goals you are striving towards? Taking in your bosom savages and traitors?"

It was no use, Trip thought. Soval words couldn't get to them. He knew about fanatics. They wouldn't see the evidence in front of their own eyes. The members of Terra Prime had seen Paxton self-medicate with alien medicine and yet they had ignored the discrepancy between his word and his action.

"You cannot judge a culture by the actions of a few." The healer huffed back.

"How fortunate for us all." Came the biting reply.

There was no reply for a while as the healer considered Soval. "I need to treat you." He finally said. He motioned to the two aides and they grabbed Soval's arm. The old man winced in pain and Trip rose hallway off his bunk. He wasn't going to let them hurt him further. The healer sensed the commotion at his side, turned to Trip "His shoulder is broken. It needs to be reset."

Trip slowly sat back. Soval's shoulder was broken? And he hadn't said a word higher than the other? His esteem for the man climbed higher. A scream pierced the air. Soval looked white as a sheet, sweat on his brow, his head lolling, eyes half-closed or half-open, as one would prefer. The healer stepped back, nodding to the other two who let go. "I will let you rest now." He addressed Soval directly. "The other injuries are mostly bruising and contusions. You can enter a healing trance."

Even half-conscious, Soval nodded. The healer helped the other two men lay him down on his cot. Trip realized it was the first time he had seen Soval lay down. Probably because of the pain. The healer and his aides left, taking with them the two men who had stayed stationed at the door.

Soval was in a healing trance. The woman was still unconscious. Trip was alone, standing guard over his cellmates.

xxx

 _ **Enterprise**_

"The shuttle is hailing us, sir."

"Everything ok?" The shuttle hailed Enterprise every couple of hours, always with the same message. Everything was proceeding as planned, they were following the warp trail of the terrorist ship out of Feurata.

"The report everything ok, sir. Still following the trail."

Travis looked over at Hoshi, startled. "Something the matter, ensign?" Archer asked.

Travis swiveled his chair at the captain. "The coordinates, sir. They're getting closer."

"Closer?" Archer got off his chair and walked over, Reed behind him.

"Yes, sir. They're getting closer to us. Actually, if both ships maintained their course, they're headed for an intercept." Archer turned to Reed. The two men exchanged knowing glances. "Ensign Travis, I think we can pick up the speed. What do you say, Lieutenant?"

"I say most certainly, Captain."

"Same heading?" Travis asked to make sure.

"We'll make this easier, Ensign. Go directly to the intercept, all due speed. Hoshi, when are Starfleet replacements due to arrive?"

"The Navarre will be here first, ETA in two days."

Archer swore under his breath. It looked like it would be Enterprise all on her own once again. Thanks to the immensity of space. They'd already been following the bird of prey trace for two days. Though if the ships intercepted, it may mean finding either would yield both Trip and Soval.

Reed was at his elbow, looking at the screen, the warp trail of the bird of prey shining the way. "How do you feel about leaving the trail?" Archer asked him.

"It's always a risk," the security man replied, "but it's just too convenient how the paths neatly align. And if we find we jumped too far ahead, we'll come back and pick up again."

Archer nodded. "I understand Soval, but why would the Romulans take Trip?" The question had been hotly debated since the whole thing happened. That Soval was a target, everyone agreed. As far as Archer knew the attackers were Romulan. According to Toussaint, there was some connection with V'Las-loyal factions on Vulcan, but that still didn't explain Trip. It must have been an opportunistic grab. It couldn't have been linked to T'Pol, she was no friend of V'Las. There was nothing between her and Trip other than the fact they were both officers aboard the finest command in Starfleet.

The mystery remained.

* * *

Two hours later a different mystery awaited them. They had easily come to the intercept. It was a wonder how much space a ship could chew when no longer bound to impulse power. Archer stood staring at the screen, Reed at his side. A green-lit trail aimed to port and a blue-one towards starboard. "Do we even know that they met?"

The blue jumpsuit at the science station easily answered. "Based on radiation readings, they were in the same place at the same time. While I can't categorically affirm, it would have been difficult for them not to meet." Archer glanced at her, one could always tell when T'Pol had been the teacher.

"Travis, any idea where they're going?"

The helmsman turned to him. "The bird of prey is going towards Romulan space. The other ship is harder to tell. It seems to be skirting around Romulan space. The next quadrant over is Ceplephus but it could be going someplace else."

It was all fine and well, but which ship to follow. If only one. Archer turned to Reed. "Thoughts?" The question was also aimed at the bridge.

Reed stood thinking, chin in hand, trying hard to mend disjointed ends. There were Romulans attacking Feurata and Soval's shuttle, bad actors on Vulcan, preventing Feurata's induction, the aim to weaken the Federation. No, not the Federation. That's where they'd been mistaken. Federation-centric, thinking the alliance was the goal. Always look for the common element. And the element in common was Vulcan. Vulcan was the target. Without the Federation as a counterweight, Vulcan would be more easily diverted. To what end? Reed squinted at the screen. It looked liked Romulans attacked Feurata and Soval's shuttle. The obvious answer would be Romulans. Yes, he would have done the same.

"Follow the other ship, the one not going towards Romulan." His statement was strong and assertive. Archer looked at his security man, hesitating. That was not as he had been expecting. But the scales were tipped by the Section mystery that hung about Reed. He turned to the screen.

"Travis, you heard our chief of security. Follow the blue trail." The helmsman sidelong-glanced at Hoshi, looking for what she thought. She arched her brow in return, the expertise laid with Malcolm.

Archer walked back to his chair. As Reed passed him, he stopped him with a gesture. "Do you think they have both of them?" He asked, silently pleading.


	11. The Forest 11 - The Slavers

xxx

 ** _Transport_**

The three of them were standing ramrod straight on the bridge. Their companions and cousins were gone, hopefully not for much longer, now was the endgame, the fate of a world lay on their shoulders. The fate of two worlds, a nation reunited, what man had put asunder joined together again. Yonakai turned to the communication and science expert. "Were you able to unlock their frequencies?"

"Yes, Centurion," the long-haired man replied. "They're using different transmission channels, we can only hear the communication from the ship or Starfleet, as you prefer."

"The ship is closer to us."

Mashana raised a finger, bidding everyone's attention, listening intently on his earmask. "They're talking right now, hear." Static echoed throughout the transport. Then the voice of a Human.

"Captain Archer here. We have traced the Romulan bird of prey to where they intercepted the terrorist ship that attacked Feurata."

There was a momentary silence then static picked up again.

"It certainly looks so. Our science ensign confirms both ships were in the same place at the same time."

More static.

"Our chief of security Lieutenant Reed says that the common element in all these events is Vulcan. He believes that the Feurata attackers were not Romulans, or both ships would have high-tailed it back to Romulan space. But instead, the Feurata ship veered off in a different direction."

An extended burst of static.

"The bird of prey did go to Romulan space. The only thing we can tell for sure is that they're very carefully going around Romulan space. If they're going to Vulcan, the shortest path will take them straight across the Ceplephus galaxy."

Static followed by more static.

"That's a distinct possibility. We believe they have Trip and Ambassador Soval."

Conversational static.

"With all due respect, Admiral, I'm not sure that we need more than one ship to follow a warp trail. If the Navarre goes back to the Ceplephus quadrant instead, they can lie in wait for them."

Interrogative static.

"Once we have a read on potential trajectories, we'll send them your way. Our only concern is that they've warped ahead but our speed is limited for fear of losing the trace. The Navarre and the Vulcan ship could triangulate with us and set up a broad net."

A short burst of static.

"I have no idea what they're preparing but I too hope we get to them in time."

Static short enough to be a good-bye.

Mashana looked up at Yonakai. "They stopped transmitting." Yonakai took a step forward, leaning over the helmsman's console. "Can we avoid the Ceplephus galaxy?"

The helmsman looked up. "We could keep close to the boundary with Romulan space until we are in the next quadrant over. It is going to take more time. We can also throw a fake trail once in a while. They will locate us anyway but it will make them hesitant about going faster."

The second pilot spoke in turn. "The optimal approach would be to reenter the Ceplephus galaxy behind the Navarre and the _Nahr_. They won't be waiting for us there. But to do so we have to transit through the quadrant beyond the Ceplephus galaxy. It has not been explored yet but there have been rumors of unfriendly species. There is a risk."

Yonakai nodded. "We won't get where we want by being scared. I will let the groups on Vulcan know."

xxx

 ** _The Forest_**

There wouldn't be much game to bring back. Not with Lidlbeut so excited she had a hard time being still. They had reached a nook at the base of an outcrop where one could always count on l'mo'rae's to be drying out as soon as the rain stopped. The rain never stopped very long and it hadn't stopped raining yet that day. T'Pol raised a hand, indicating silence. The young I'shlin slunk to where she was crouched in wait. All of a sudden, she couldn't resist. "Do you think you'll get one?"

T'Pol turned to the child. There would be no game today. Her tone was patience itself as she addressed the youth. ""Come, we're done for the day. Tomorrow, perhaps."

"But we haven't caught anything?!" Lidlbeut crumpled in a heap. "It's my fault! Alone, you wouldn't have failed."

T'Pol crouched at eye-level. "Everyone fails at times. What matters are lessons learned. As I learned, you too shall learn."

The young I'Shlin looked up in hope. "How old were you when you learned to be a hunter?"

T'Pol stared at Lidlbeut in silence. "A hunter I am not, and I have never been. What I do best is use survival skills. By applying these skills to the environment, I am able to provide a steady flow of protein to the tribe, a fair exchange for food and shelter." She straightened. "Come," she said, and they both walked a ways to a nook under a rock where the steady mist did not form rivulets. There were stone seats of sorts. Lidlbeut knew better than to stare at the sores on the alien's feet. Elderweiss had told her it was the air and the water, and like the hands she kept clad against the pain and for a better aim.

T'Pol started speaking. "I do not remember much of the time before I came, the I'Ph'Lis clouds my memories in a world without reach, but I do remember that at a young age, I underwent a ritual based on survival." T'Pol saw that she had her audience's rapt attention.

"My world is very dry, hotter than any day here and without any wetness. It is called a desert. The desert is a cruel place and one without care would very soon meet their fate. On my world, children are taught at a young age how to survive alone in the desert, as they were often called to do in times past and may still encounter in a far-flung future. When they turn eleven, the age when life lessons are entrenched, they are taken to the desert, to survive for seven days. That is about as long as it takes for the G'Qe'Nkaa root to span new growth." Seeing Lildbeut's silent gasp, T'Pol went on. "The ritual may seem severe but remember that it is only the application of well-rehearsed lessons. My people can survive seven days without drink, ensuring that at most the ritual is one of hardship. The Kahs-Wan is planned to teach life skills, it is not mean to kill, though that sometimes happen. When I was eleven, I was much like you are now but being a Vulcan child, I was practiced in the art of the ahns-woon and the lirpa, and spears almost like ours. I knew how to seek protection from the heat and the cool, and how to locate food and water. I was confident in my survival and that I would complete the test.

I remember my first night under the stars, alone, my parents gone, with the tools of my age. Where on this world water is everywhere, on my world, water is always spare. I dug a hole in the sand, covered it with my coat, and sucked the dawn early on. And then I was alone, the day was hot, and a sehlat screamed nearby." T'Pol saw the question that was forming on Lidlbeut's lips.

"In the wild, sehlats are fifty times the size of a l'mo'rae and fierce beasts. I easily evaded it for sehlats cannot climb, but it wouldn't leave, circling below and tasting my scent in the wind. I realized that where the sehlat went, other beasts would follow. The desert is a harsh place for all, and my body held the promise of food and drink for many.

It struck me then that survival was not a given, that the world I was in had its own rules, impervious to logic, and that my odds were greater as part of the whole. To survive, I needed the sehlat to ignore me. The sehlat would ignore what it could not distinguish. Over time its olfactory cells would become accustomed to my smell. What I needed was to become a stone among the stones. And once I did, I found that the desert lived around me in ways I had never noticed before. What seemed to be arid was actually full of life, from the sand-blasting wind to the _hauroks_ in the sky, the lizards in the rock shade, the flesh-eating flora. Each Kahs-Wan is personal, and mine was about letting the desert live through me."

"What happened to the sehlat?"

T'Pol's eyebrow froze midway in amusement. "Eventually it found distraction in another scent and stopped signaling my presence to the other desert dwellers."

"How can I become one with I'Hy'Iuvh? With The Forest." Lidlbeut carefully enunciated the words she had heard the alien use, who couldn't pronounce I'Hy'Iuvh's true name.

"In order to let the forest in, your mind must be at rest. Let your mind be. Imagine a tree." T'Pol stopped talking and closed her eyes. Minutes passed. Lidlbeut didn't feel the urge to talk anymore, she was waiting for T'Pol to want to talk again, thinking about the story, trying to imagine what it would feel like to be one with I'Hy'Iuvh.

All of a sudden it struck her that she was hearing I'Hy'Iuvh in a way she never had before, not just as the background to her life, but a living, pulsating force, from the rain falling on the leaves to the l'mo'raes hiding underneath, the insects darting all around, her tribe in the clearing down the bend, the birds flittering in the trees. When she opened her eyes, she could feel the life within, how it all worked together. She knew then she would be a great hunter.

xxx

 ** _Transport_**

Soval was still unconscious. The woman too, and Trip hadn't seen anyone since the healer left. Once in a while he felt changes in the vibrato of the engines, too rhythmic and regular to be due to evasive maneuvers. Plus the fact they were not being fired upon. Probably trying to throw the trail off. Leave it to Vulcans to even be logical about that. He could tell that the rebels manning the ship were not professionals. He would ask Soval when he woke up, but somehow he had a sense the old fox would never have so faithfully repeated the same pattern of acceleration and deceleration.

But that was not his current concern. His current concern was much more immediate. "Hey?! Anyone monitoring this join?!" He hollered at the ceiling. He didn't think it would wake up his cellmates, and even if it did, it wouldn't have mattered. It was a question of life or death. He thought about calling again, then reminded himself these were Vulcans. Even if rebellious, they would be both disciplined and curious. So he waited.

Soon enough, the cell door opened and two muscles walked in, looking at him impassively. Trip cleared his throat. "I realize I'm a Human and all, and y'all may not have spent that much time with the likes of me, but a Human will die without food and water faster than a Vulcan will. Sorry to make like an orchid on you guys, but I need something to drink. Now!"

Muscle one nodded to muscle two, who quickly left the room, coming back in no time with a water skin and an armful of square provisions. Trip hid a sigh. Another round of lousy emergency rations. He wondered if they took the pepperoni off the pizza, then remembered it was a Vulcan ship, they wouldn't have either. Which also meant all of his meals promised to be vegetarian. There was only so much one could demand, especially, from within a cell in the hold of a vessel. He had already grabbed the water skin, heedless of the overflow dripping on his scruff and his shirt and the silently disapproving stare of the guards. If they wanted demure, they should've thought'a it before.

The next thing he knew he was picking himself off the floor. The muscle men too were unfolding themselves from where they had been sent sprawling. This time there was no mistake. The ship was under attack. The jolt had thrown Soval off his couch and he was moving feebly, trying to gather his wits about him.

Trip hesitated half a second, looking in turn at Soval and the guards, and then with his teeth tore off the wrapping of the nearest ration. Having already experienced near starvation, and not only on this ship, he knew the value of every nutrient in hand as opposed to two in the bush. He could hope that the attackers were Federation, and then his next meal would be plied high with steak and catfish. If there was a next meal. Reason knew better than to rely on hope and he wouldn't be the one crying over a missed meal.

The infusion of calories helped and he felt immensely better. Well enough to start worrying about what might be. The ship had stopped moving, the engines were no longer humming, and the muscles had left the cell, though they didn't forget to secure it. Darn Vulcans. He went to pick up Soval off the floor and gently helped him back to his bench. Something ominous was near, Trip felt it like a whisper on the back of his neck.

There was nothing to do but wait.

xxx

 ** _Enterprise_**

Excerpt from Captain's log - stardate xxxx.6 \- We're following the trail of the ship that attacked Feurata, which Lieutenant Reed thinks has Soval and Trip. Ensign Mayweather informs us that the ship has veered away from Romulan space.

 _Supplemental Captain's log_ – I want it on the record that we are forced by necessity to follow at low impulse, which means the Feurata ship is getting further and further away. I have alerted Starfleet command and am waiting for further instructions. Hopefully, they can send a replacement ship and free us to warp ahead and catch the Feurata ship unaware.

Excerpt from Captain's log - stardate xxxx.7 – Still following the Feurata ship trail. Admiral Toussaint has given us orders to stay on track. The Navarre and the Nahr, I think it's the Nahr, have been dispatched to where we think the ship will enter the Ceplephus galaxy. They have set sensors on wide and should be able to track the ship as soon as it enters the galaxy.

Excerpt from Captain's log - stardate xxxx.8 – Still following the Feurata ship trail. We had to reduce speed as we almost lost their trace a couple of times. I want to submit an official commendation for Ensign Mayweather, who realized there was a regular pattern to the trail exceptions that sent us off-track. The Navarre and the Nahr report no entry into the Ceplephus galaxy. In hIndsight, sensor readings reveal that the Feurata ship is hugging the border along Romulan space. I gave orders to follow their projected route, one impulse higher than before.

Excerpt from Captain's log - stardate xxxx.9 –0200. Waiting for a cup of coffee. As usual, all the good things happen in the middle of the night. Travis' relief woke us all up because they found the ship's signature on the sensors. We're only hours away at impulse, minutes at warp. I don't know how we could have caught up with the ship when we were falling so far behind. I have asked Engineer Hess to go to high impulse but not warp. I suspect a trap. We will be intercepting the vessel within the next two hours.

 _Supplemental Captain's log_ – 0410 hours. We found the Feurata ship, but it is not responding to our hails and there are no biosigns aboard. I have asked Lieutenant Reed to lead the away team. I need to remain aboard Enterprise in case this whole setup is a trap.

 _Supplemental Captain's log_ – 0600 hours. Lieutenant Reed and the landing party came back from the Feurata ship with four casualties. None of them are Ambassador Soval or Commander Tucker. We've been able to identify one of the dead men per the highly confidential extract of the Vulcan database that we received after Soval's abduction. His war name is Yonakai – if I understand what Vulcans mean by savage name. Indications is that he was one of the rebel leaders. Reed thinks that's why he was killed as there are few signs of conflict aboard the transport ship. They did exchange fire with the unknown assailant, but were quickly subdued. I am going aboard with Dr. Phlox for the next phase of the investigation.

 _Supplemental Captain's log_ – 0810 hours. Captain Archer, just back from the Feurata ship. Important news: the medical team found traces of Soval's blood in one of the barracks. I repeat. Indications are that the Vulcan ambassador was alive when the ship was attacked. His aide, T'Agatha or something I think, we also found traces of her blood. Dr. Phlox is preparing a report, which he will send confidentially to Vulcan.

 _Supplemental Captain's log_ – 0950 hours. Dr. Phlox came to the bridge with the DNA results report. Tests confirmed the presence of Commander Tucker's DNA in the barracks. The ship was holding both Soval and Trip. We have no idea who the attacker was. The absence of bodies leads us to believe they are still alive. Dr. Phlox estimates a contingent of fifteen to thirty Vulcans was aboard the ship. Four less now. Our science and engineering teams are collecting all warp trails in the sector. Fortunately, this is not a high traffic location. We are hopeful we'll soon have a trail.

* * *

 _Notes from the author: I don't know if there is a canon for Kahs-Wan (I checked but couldn't find one) but I just can't wrap my mind around any culture that would send their young out to potentially be killed. I went for a softer version of the ritual, difficult and challenging, but not the live-or-die trial that is sometimes portrayed (and like all difficult and challenging physical events, morbidity/mortality rate is higher than zero)._


	12. The Forest 12 - The Unrest

xxx

 ** _T'Agad Story_**

The smell. The smell was not as it should be. Engine fumes, confined scent, other Vulcans, Him, a Human, other species so far unknown, not Romulan, that, she would know.

T'Agad kept her eyes closed. She was lying on something hard and cold. The floor? A floor? The pain had receded, was still there, calling for further care but held at bay. Abject feelings and thoughts were also there, somewhere, untouchable and untouched. Soval's fix had held firm. His fix. Could she so hate someone who had helped? Was she a weakling, ready to lick a hand for a pat on the head? No! She must not! She must despise Him and everything He stood for. She set her mind to hate again.

Where was she? It was no longer the Romulan ship. It was not Vulcan either, too foreign a scent apart from Vulcan bodies and life energies. A Human ship? It would stink so badly she could not but gag on the stench. A ship, unknown. It didn't really matter. Nothing mattered other than the burning white of hate, the burning green of assaulted flesh. And now the burning embers of shame. The ones she thought so near were not. Would never be. Had never been. How could she be so foolish...

She couldn't think such thoughts. It would leave her unarmed, open, compromised. To her dying breath she had to hold the line. She wrapped herself anew in the mantle of hatred, the burning contempt for Him whose allegiance had shifted to the runt from the Forge, the vile dwarf at the top. How could He refuse to consider how Vulcan was weak, brother cut off from his brother, sister from her sister. True strength came from their ferocious side. She shuddered at the thought. That side offered no redemption.

Why did she shudder? It had to be so. A soul integrated could pull from the good and from the bad. Vulcan reunited would once again proudly stand. But where was pride in the face of deception? How could one stand when a leg could not be trusted? Perhaps Vulcan was right to cut herself off from such corruption.

Perhaps they all had been mistaken.

She shouldn't think such thoughts.

She opened her eyes, blinking at the darkness all around. She couldn't move, hard shackles restraining her freedom. She blinked again. A movement to her right let her know He knew she was awake. The Human was next to them. Where were they? Before she could find the words, Soval had leaned over and told her: "An Orion slaver."

xxx

 ** _Vulcan_**

T'Pau walked quickly through the frigid hallways of the Federation agency on Vulcan, the Starfleet officers opening the way before her and her retinue. The lights were too dim, the air cold and wet, the people overly excited, whether it was upon seeing her or scrambling out of the way, the noise was close to unbearable, like a starship taking flight in a closed hangar, and nothing was aesthetically pleasing. She didn't know how people could live in such a state of hyper-excitement, on the one hand, and underwhelming beauty, on the other. Finally, they got to the office of the head of the Federation Office at Vulcan. The doors closed behind her and she could relax ever so slightly. The lights were still dim, the air still cold, the office still lacking in harmony, but the noise was buffered and the head of the office knew better than to be excited. She knew from official transmissions and his attendance at the usual functions his name to be Borde Marra.

On the wall, an oversize screen was endlessly looping news from Terra and Vulcan. She didn't need to listen to the announcement. Marra noticed her lack of interest whereas the aides around slightly widened their eyes as the news reached their ears. He would always wonder if perhaps she had a hand in its writing. He would retire and eventually die, not knowing. The only one who'd know would be the hapless lieutenant who had done her bidding.

The sound of the newscast filled the room as a stern young Human spoke from the screen. "Newsflash - communiqué from Vulcan – Our correspondent on Vulcan tells us about a failed coup attempt. We're bringing you this live from the capital of Shi'Khar, were a crowd has been gathering for the ceremonies of the Fifth Day of the Second Rising of Turok, a pre-Awakening ritual still followed by a large majority." Scenes were quickly zooming through behind the speaker, showing security forces, what looked like a large building, black-clad rifled armed security forces, other groups coming out of the building. "What you can see behind me is the hall where Minister T'Pau was scheduled to commence the ceremony. The hall has been shut down and security teams are posted inside and outside the building. Reports are that an arsenal of weapons and explosives was found hidden in the building. We also hear from our correspondent that the instigators of the coup have been apprehended and that these were forces loyal to the former minister. The Vulcan authorities are asking anyone with information to contact the Security Ministry at once. To quote Minister Sphelt. 'We will find them eventually, it would be more logical if they came forward of their own volition.' The Vulcan Security Ministry has refused to comment except to state that the manufacturers and sellers of the weapons will be found and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. "

Marra brusquely cut off the sound. T'Pau turned to him. "You requested my presence?" Her tone made it clear how presumptuous it was for the Human, even if he was the head of the Federation Office, to dare and summon the head of all Vulcan.

Marra felt himself redden with anger, made a very concerted effort to hold himself in rein. "This... this!" He pointed at the screen. "How about some warning? Our comm system has already crashed three times this morning and we're blowing through equipment faster than we can replace it."

An imperious eyebrow saluted his salvo. "Are you requesting that the Security Ministry share their findings with your office?"

Brode Marra sighed, seizing the bridge of the noise and closing his yes "No, that's not what I meant. The Federation has no business being involved in Vulcan's internal affairs and wouldn't even dream of it." He sighed. "But it would help if we'd had some advance notice, just a heads up, so we can be prepared. Every last world in the Federation is calling us asking for confirmation or more information. That's how we found out."

"Very well." T'Pau arranged her robes around her. "How much time do you need?"

Marra eyed her mournfully. She was being concrete on purpose. He quickly calculated how much time he would like to have, doubled it. "Twenty-four hours?"

The stare that received his offer made him feel like a lepidopter on the wrong side of a pinning needle. She didn't even have to speak. "At least twelve," he capitulated, making a mental note to not negotiate with T'Pau, she didn't get the concept.

"We will let you know three hours ahead of time." T'Pau curtly announced. "That is plenty to get everyone ready."

That was plenty to get Vulcans ready, but the staff of the Federation agency was not exactly a hotbed of efficiency. "That would be enough if all the staff were the same species." He appealed. "We need more time, your excellency."

This time the glare cut him off at the knees. "Minister T'Pau."

"My apologies, Minister." Whatever name she preferred. It was a change from the usual title inflation rampant in the bureaucracy.

She simply looked at him, without saying a word. From the corner of her eye, T'Pau's saw Marra's sunglasses perched precariously on top of a file. They were the same brand as those worn by Jonathan Archer on the Forge. It reminded her that some Humans were aligned with Vulcan's interests. Right when Marra thought it was a failed endeavor, she spoke again. "Five hours, not one minute more."

"Thank you, your - Minister T'Pau." Marra still couldn't quite believe she had shown up at his doorstep. When he had told her aides he would like to see T'Pau, he had expected a carefully orchestrated meeting with plenty of advance notice, not for her to come barging where he lived.

T'Pau turned to leave, cocked her head as if she had just remembered something in passing. "Any word about the ship that took Ambassador Soval?"

Ah, so that was why she'd come. It would have been an improper personal indulgence to reach out and ask. And the Federation would not say anything unless there was something to share. Fortunately, he'd taken the time that morning to read the communique from headquarters. "Enterprise is still hot on its trail. They're a few days behind, trying to catch up."

T'Pau nodded, regal. Marra needed to act fast, before she left. "How did you find out?" he blurted.

She knew he was asking about the rebels. "The faction that kidnapped Ambassador Soval sent word to their accomplices that they were being delayed. Once we had their contact on Vulcan, it was simply a matter of going up the chain. We have been monitoring the entire transmission network. "

'Including ours' thought Marra, though he held little doubt that their transmissions were already being monitored, as a matter of course. The Federation would be very naïve indeed if it didn't hide sensitive directives within layers and layers of plain data and encryption. "What are we facing here?" He went on. As Vulcan went, so did the Federation. If Vulcan were in the throes of civil unrest...

"There are still forces loyal to V'Las on Vulcan. We will see to them." With that, the head of all-Vulcan turned and left.

xxx

 ** _Orion Slaver_**

Dozem only wanted to get home. They had been crisscrossing the quadrant for months now, looking for new hunting grounds, and all they had to show for it were missing plates on their hull, a frustrated crew, and dwindling reserves. That was bad enough already and now they had a shipload of Vulcans. Vulcans. Everybody knew they made the worst slaves. It was not the damaged female or the one Human in their midst that was going to save the sale. He went back to piloting the ship, muttering within himself. All he wanted was to go home.

"Just one more stop and we'll go back to Orion." Ngekkom seemed to know what Dozem was thinking. He too wanted to go to Orion, but they couldn't return like paupers. Once back, he would make sure everyone knew not to venture these paths again, the quadrant had nothing to offer, the species were bellicose and well-matched to an Orion raider. It was only luck that had made them come onto an old and badly defended ship. Of course, they hadn't expected the crew to be all Vulcan. And two scores of them, too. He needed to sell them promptly, Vulcans were trouble and twenty of them a breakout waiting to happen, even with double security restraints on them all.

Half his crew had wanted to jettison them and grab their ship for salvage but tugging that old scow would have cost more than their reserve of fuel rods. No, Ngekkom had other ideas. He could smell the possibility of money before any other, even his twin, and he was going over their short but puzzling encounter with an alien ship, at least six months prior, the alien captain trying to hide that he was quickly seizing up the crew.

Ngekkom had softly chuckled at him, both a question and a warning. "Yes?"

"Nothing." The alien captain's yellow eyes belied his statement. "Excuse me for asking, Captain, but do you have any telepaths on board?"

Ngekkom had been surprised, and had stared at his twin Ngeguk before he answered. "No, there are no telepaths here. The crew is all Orions and Orions are not telepaths. Far from it. Why?"

"Oh just thought I'd ask. Nothing, really." The other captain had smiled over his disappointment, cutting-off communication right after the usual farewells.

Now they did have telepaths on board, and something told him the alien captain would be interested. He turned to Ngeguk. "Brother, do you still have the transmission frequency of those aliens we encountered, you know the ones that looked like walking _tedrachs_ with golden eyes?" Ngeguk nodded his understanding and went looking.

Ngekkom turned to Dozem. "Go back to the coordinates where we encountered that ship. Ngeguk, start broadcasting on the way there. Here's what you'll say. 'For sale, up to twenty touch-telepaths. Good price on the lot. If interested, please reply'."

xxx

 ** _The Forest_**

The G'Qe'Nkaa root had spanned another growth, and then another one again. The two hunters stepped lightly on their way back to camp, heavy with game, the promise of food for the tribe. The moss was springing with water underneath, masking the sound of their step. The smaller one was in front, the taller one in the back, pleased with the smaller hunter's progress, how she already held the stance of a seasoned hunter, her l'mo'rae-heavy spear witness to her growing prowess, her scruff stiff with pride and pleasure.

A bend hid the path beyond and their silent steps surprised them with a fledgling fallen off its nest high up in a V'Bu'Rwe tree. The smaller hunter stopped, the taller coming to stand next to her as they both looked at the infant bird pitifully calling for its mother.

Lidlbeut's small and pointy fangs watered at the sight. She was about to scoop it for the kill when T'Pol stopped her with a hand on the wrist. "We have plenty of food for the tribe."

Lidlbeut looked at her, not understanding. "I'm not going to share it."

T'Pol looked at her young apprentice with eyes deeper set every day. "The bird is small, you won't even get a taste. But if you let it grow, it might feed you one day, directly or through its progeny."

Lidlbeut stared at the fledgling again. "So what should we do?" Her worship of T'Pol meant the bird would not be eaten, yet prevented any misgivings.

T'Pol looked up at the V'Bu'Rwe tree. "I see the nest on a branch above. Can you climb and bring it back?" The question was rhetorical, meant to be perfunctory. Instead, it made Lidlbeut's hackles stand at stiff attention. T'Pol eyed her uncomprehendingly. Lidlbeut stared at the ground, feeling embarrassed that her idol wouldn't know a truth so elementary. "We cannot climb the tree."

T'Pol cocked her head to the side. "It is forbidden to climb V'Bu'Rwe trees?"

"No," Lidlbeut shook her head vehemently. "I'Shlins cannot climb." She eyed her friend quizzically. "Why, can you?"

T'Pol nodded and without another word, dropped spear and l'mo'raes to take the fledgling bird in one hand. She stuck it between pelt and skin, where it would be warm while leaving her free of limb. The V'Bu'Rwe trees were easily climbed, branches jutting out at regular angles, and it was a small matter to ladder up to the nest, then back down without her guest. Lidlbeut's eyes widened with awe.

As T'Pol stepped down, the world around shifted and she lost her footing. She leaned hard against the V'Bu'Rwe tree, trying to regain her mooring. Another image superimposed itself on the space around her, the trees became soaring steel girders and the canopy a black field of diamond-studded velvet. There were shadows of people she knew too, a horseshoe of souls awaiting their captain, one in particular she needed to remember. She looked around anxiously at the unknown, trying to parse past and present, to determine which memories were only shadows, to find out, if not fully who, at least where she was.

Her world shifted back just as suddenly bringing her back to an informed present. She remembered. Somewhat. She would need to meditate. She leaned on her spear, staring at the unending canopy above. She could feel her hair gently brushing her shoulders - a gauge of time gone by. It seemed her calculations had been awry, she did not have a year or two. As to which first would take her, the I'Ph'Lis or her gravelly cough, it was illogical to wonder.

Lidlbleut had seen the eyes of her mentor glaze over, was familiar with the telltale signs of the waning of the I'Ph'Lis. Very soon, it would be time for Elderweiss to gather the tribe in communion, the joyful celebration that preceded their ingestion of the drink. But how could there be joy if the sweet nectar was poison to her mentor? Her mother had told her about aliens guests before, how over time their minds would lose their anchor, their bodies soon to follow. The alien was her friend, her hunting partner. She had kept the young ones fed during the waning season, had taught Lidlbeut the trail and the hunt and the ways of the game. This was how the tribe would repay her?

But Elderweiss brooked no arguments, the young alien had to ingest the I'Ph'Lis, even though her Sighting was but a pale imitation of the I'Shling glory. For Lidlbeut, the celebration had become tinged with worry, and guilt, some anger, a feeling of what shouldn't be. Her youthful mind judged her tribal world, and for the first time found it wanting.


	13. The Forest 13 - The Sale

xxx

 ** _Vulcan_**

"Minister T'Pau."

The young woman turned towards the man who had just entered the council chambers, gravely nodding her head. "Minister Sphelt."

His hair was jet black, a reminder that it was more often Vulcans of his parents' age that had been seduced by the V'Las chimera.

Sphelt approached in awe, which was logical given what T'Pau had accomplished. He fished a disk out of his front pocket, handed it to her. T'Pol turned the disk over front to back, but there were no markings, just a shiny black circle. She logically deducted that Sphelt would not be handing her a blank file.

"What is this?" She asked.

"It's a file on one individual. We started doing research after Soval's shuttle was found. The discovery of the arsenal two weeks ago led us to additional weapon caches belonging to the underground group, and eventually their electronic files. The information was, deeply encrypted in a novel way. It took our specialists a long time to crack the code. The rebels were using Human encryption as a base, there was no logical progression." Sphelt's ear tips greened slightly. "We are reviewing our encryption methodology to introduce an element of randomness in the combinations."

"Which individual?" T'Pau cut him off before he went into an in-depth explanation of encryption options. They had not needed such artifices on The Forge. The Forge. Her gaze went to the window and the desert beyond. Those had been simple times, if dangerous. There was Syrran, her friend and her mentor, taken by the sandfires. There were all the others, fallen under V'Las claims. T'Les, mother of T'Pol, missing, like Soval. Was there a connection there? Did the same party stand behind the disappearance of one and the other? It logically couldn't be. The differences in time were too broad, the objectives unaligned. It simply could not be the same person. But the same side?

"Which individual?" She repeated at Sphelt, who had gone silent, waiting for her bidding. She was younger than he, did he not realize? How could he justify the awe he held her in? She had done nothing more than walk the one true path shone by Surak. He was the source of all that had propelled her thus far, events bending to her will into favorable outcomes. So many of her companions had died along the way. She had to consider how many more would be sacrificed on the altar of the new Vulcan way.

"Ambassador Soval's principal junior aide, T'Agad." Sphelt was in full security-chief splendor as he summarized what was in the file. "Fifty-six years old. Native of Sij'Kahr. Mother is T'Lus, an exobiologist, father is Volkath, a lirpa maker, deeply devoted to V'Las. Family has no particular societal markers but the entire area is home to many in V'Las inner circle. We believe that her indoctrination started at a young age, deepened when she studied at Kunel'Herir where she came into contact with V'Las loyal agents. Indications are that she started working undercover for the rebels then, with a mission to infiltrate... deviant... groups at the university." Sphelt ear tips greened again slightly, 'deviant' was the V'Las code word for Syrrannites. T'Pau thought it was interesting that her chief of security would be prone to blushing. Perhaps the vasoconstrictor effect would lessen with age.

Sphelt was going on. "She was a brilliant intelligence student and when she graduated she was assigned to the embassy staff on Earth. She has been excelling since, her professional trajectory is following the expected path." Sphelt paused, looked at her directly. "We have confirmation her hatred of the ambassador is profound. If it were up to her, he would have already been killed."

"Do we know where she is?"

Sphelt knew T'Pau meant whether she had been on the transport back to Vulcan, or had absconded to Romulan space. "We believe she is still with Soval. Our agents report no sighting of her on any of the Romulan worlds. Our hypothesis is that she stayed with the ambassador, pretending to be a victim in order to deepen his trust in her. Her psychological profile reveals nothing would please her more than to announce the news of her betrayal as he lays on death's doorstep."

T'Pau fell silent, considering. Soval and T'Agad were the only ones left alive from the shuttle. T'Agad's pretense as a victim would give her more leeway, a broader field of action. It was well done. She was a brilliant intelligence student, though there was something sinister about her.

"What do you suggest we do?" She asked. She would want to warn Soval that the danger was twofold, the one by his side possibly larger than the one ahead. As a Syrrannite, she was not pleased about the trickery of pretending to be what one wasn't. As a friend, she angered that Soval would trust someone not to be trusted, that his faith would be so abused. And yet, there was nothing to be done except wait for what must happen.

The question visibly upset Sphelt, so new in his functions and already faced with having no satisfactory answer. "All our resources are focused on finding the ambassador," was his terse reply. It went without saying that there was nothing else they could do.

xxx

 ** _Enterprise_**

Archer was not happy. This felt like something he had done before, days spent tracking an elusive prey, going more slowly than he wanted, hiding out of sensor range, and now he was looking at Admiral Toussaint anew, the man once again imparting unwelcome news. That was starting to look like the admiral's life goal, ensconced as he was behind a desk at Starfleet Headquarters.

Archer narrowed his eyes at the man, letting him know exactly what he thought about this new information. "How did an insurgent group get so close to the ambassador?"

Toussaint shook his head, brow furrowed. "You don't expect Vulcan gave us an answer, do you, Captain Archer?" He shook his head again. "When the V'Las regime was over and T'Pau took over, we thought it was a peaceful transition of power." He glowered at Archer. "I'm not sure how Starfleet would have liked learning back then that one of its commanders had facilitated the overthrow of a major government, but they didn't. Earth may have had its issues with the Vulcan High Command, but we certainly wouldn't have wanted to look like we interfered." He pushed back in his chair. "But we're finding out that you were part of what on Vulcan passes for a revolution." Toussaint chuckled. "Part of… More like you were the entire reason."

"I wasn't myself." Archer drily replied. He hated it when anyone came at him about the events at the Forge. It was true he hadn't been himself. But if he had, he probably would've done the same.

"Anyway," Toussaint brushed his objection with a swipe of his hand, "Things on Vulcan are a lot more unsettled than we ever imagined. Rebels, insurgents, armed groups loyal to V'Las. We're still processing what we're hearing. You can imagine that Starfleet is slightly anxious to land on the right side of history on this one. There's a lot of uncertainty now in the admiralty. Personally my bet is on T'Pau. She's already avoided a coup and is showing to have quite a backbone."

Archer's mind went back to the wild-looking woman who was holed up with the Syrrannites on the Forge. She didn't become the leader of the group because she was soft and agreeable. He remembered how power started emanating from her the moment she stepped in the council chamber and took V'Las out, as if she were the source and bearer of something bigger than herself, bigger than them all. He agreed with Toussaint. Hers was the side he'd bet on.

"So what is this about?" He asked. He didn't believe that Toussaint had reached out just to gab about T'Pau's chances on the throne or to tell him that one of the three people they were looking for was a traitor. That wouldn't have required a face-to-face meeting.

Toussaint was looking at something on his desk. "You remember the Nahr, the ship that was going to meet the Navarre in the Ceplephus quadrant to help search for T'Pol?"

Archer nodded. The question was how could Toussaint ever imagine he'd forget.

"Well, the Vulcans have it in their heads that the disappearances of T'Pol and Soval are somewhat connected." Tousain sighed, straightened an off-screen pile of padds. "Personally, I think they're out in la-la land, but go explain that to a Vulcan. They have a very sensible and logical explanation, as always. Has to do with Soval and T'Pol both being posted on Earth, the rebel groups were possibly active at the time, you get the idea." Toussaint crossed his hands on his desk. "To make a long story short, they're diverting the Nahr to help you track the attacker."

Archer wasn't sure if he liked that or not, but he automatically scowled. The Vulcans were sure to be a real pain in the neck, as always. "I don't need any help," he started to say, and Toussaint raised a palm to stop the outburst. "You Starfleet-captain types never do." He sighed, rubbed his face. "But this is not about whether you can do it all alone, we know you can. This is about helping a present, and let's be clear, I wager future ally. If T'Pau is asking for the Nahr to work with you, whatever her reasons are, I'm fine with it. And so are you."

"Aye, sir. We'll make it work." Archer nodded, seething inwardly. It only served to remind him why he preferred to be deep out in space, far from headquarters.

xxx

 ** _Orion Slaver_**

Makatradr looked at the enormously green aliens on the screen. It was only by chance he had received their hail, already on his way back to Y'Cr'Stea with cartloads from another trading run. His holds were full with Blenajj ink and Carxienthian silk, delicious Pewrnik and even some Schilbleeks with their lethal barbs. And now the alien captain claimed he had a cargo of telepaths to unload.

Makatradr had heard that chance favored the bold and the ambitious and would have liked to believe he was an example of both, but knew that in his case chance had favored the industrious and those predisposed to hard work. He saluted the captain whom he remembered having met previously, careful that saying too much could compromise the best terms of the deal.

That was seven hours before.

Now, Makatradr was sitting on his stool, thinking. If he had been Human, he would have been stroking his beard, but being an I'Shlin, all he had to finger was the mane on his neck. Securing the aliens had been a breeze, the only complication whether there were enough psi-depressing devices for them all. But he always had an armload on board, even though he had used them only one and two at-a-time before, for hope sprung eternal and a good trader knew to be prepared.

He had meant to buy only one or two of the telepathic aliens, possibly two pairs, but then an idea had sprung in his mind and he had gone for the whole lot. Negotiations had been thorough, each side play-acting its disgust and sorrow, until, in a spontaneous gesture, the hugely green alien had thrown in a new creature, unappetizingly pale and pink but with eyes the color of precious stone. That one would make a special prize.

The new cargo were all endowed with the reviled Sighting, except for the pink one, the one with rounded ears, there was nothing to detect there though the seers on Y'Cr'Stea were more sensitive and would be definitive. Now that the alien ship was gone Makatradr could set his plan in motion, possibly double or triple his income, perhaps even more. A good trader had a book of contacts and knew its customers. Some would be willing to spare with a hefty sum for a private sortie. Makatradr started figuring in his head how large the party and how to price the entry. His fangs were watering at the profits. If he'd had hands to rub, he'd have rubbed them in glee. He turned to his helmsman.

"Exprtlot, send word to Y'Cr'Stea, all my best customers, let them know of a special event, small but exquisite, a one-of-a-kind opportunity, not to be missed, a private hunt of over twenty touch-telepaths. Limited to… hmm… fifteen hunters. The fees will be commensurate with the experience but in light of the lifetime chance won't set them back in any appreciable way." Once he had sold the first fifteen spots, he would keep going, accepting bribes along the way. The true limit was twenty-five. He would easily get there.

xxx

 ** _Enterprise_**

Beep. Beep. Beep. The noise was incessant, finally rousing Archer from a fitless sleep. He groaned, pulled a pillow over his face. Why did everything have to happen in the middle of the night? "Hold on a second" he yelled at the console, which paid him no heed and went on beeping. Archer hit the intercom next to the head of his bed. "Yes?"

"Captain, captain, captain" the Science Specialist voice was high with excitement. "We have a match on the signature!" That was Schuyler holding the delta shift. His need to start in threes was well known across the ship, a source of benign amusement, some teasing. Schuyler bore it all with good grace and went through life unfazed, thrice calling on everyone he met.

Archer sprang up, ran to the door. Then turned back and surveyed the room. To put on his uniform or not to put on his uniform. The hell with it. He stepped into the corridor as he was, barefeet, hair-mussed and all. There was no time to be wasted. Stepped back in, the ship always felt cooler in the middle of the night. Finally he was dressed, stepping onto the bridge. That was when he thought of asking "What signature?"

There was a crowd of sorts around the science station. The graveyard shift only had so many available bodies, a small group in alpha shift became a mob in delta. Archer stepped through, seeing from the corner of his eye a bleary Reed coming onto the bridge. Hoshi was walking to her station, somewhat disheveled. Archer made a sudden connection, those two should have spaced their arrival somewhat, it might be a matter of optics but it begged the thought that there was something more.

"Specialist Schuyler." Archer simply said, letting the weight of his rank prompt the question.

"Sir, whenever we come upon a new ship trace I make a point of logging it. You never know what might happen. I was going over the week's signature logs and it struck me, one of the signatures we had seen before. Look!"

The crewman excitedly pointed to a screen on his console, which Archer could only see upside down and sideways. He took a step back, consciously modulating his tone, the last thing he needed was to scare Schuyler. It reminded him of a favorite childhood line of his, from one of his uncles or possibly his grandfather 'You don't hunt, do you?' a reminder that there were other ways to get to what one wanted.

"Put it on the screen, Specialist, it will be easier for all of us to see."

Schuyler twiddled a couple of controls and the main screen lit up with the graphics of warp engine trails.

"Above is the trail we picked up yesterday," Schuyler explained, enthralled, "and below, one of the two signatures from Qaybos that didn't have matching ships. Look how the signatures align." Schuyler hit a switch and the two graphs merged into one, the same.

Archer and Reed were already talking to each other.

"Lieutenant –

"Captain –… Apologies, Captain, please go ahead."

"Lieutenant Reed," Archer paused, turned to the science specialist, "Specialist Schuyler, what are the chances the same ship is tied to the disappearance of Vulcans on Qaybos and Vulcans on the ambassadorial shuttle?"

Silence answered him and Archer wished T'Pol was there. "Let me put it another way. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, what are the chances it's not a duck." Everyone's eyes lit up in comprehension, and Archer was relieved T'Pol wasn't there. He would have had to spend a lot of time explaining that one.

"Perhaps they're not related." Reed reminded him softly.

Archer turned to him. "You're the Security Chief. What is your take on it?" Seeing Malcolm hesitate, Archer called out louder. "Anyone from the bridge crew, meet me in the command center in five."

When he walked in, they were all there. Malcolm, Hoshi, Hess, Schuyler, and someone had gotten Travis out of bed. He was grateful for that. He would have liked Phlox, too, he didn't know why. Perhaps simply because it made him feel better, he'd spent weeks without his commanders, running his crew into the ground, and eventually he would have to open the file of recommendations from Starfleet and think about replacing them. Thankfully, this was not the day's topic.

"I know we're tired and stressed, and we've been looking for our crewmates for weeks on end. I need everybody's best thinking on this one. To go over the facts, we've found one of the two ships from Qaybos. Now we have to decide whether we veer off and go after the Qyabos ship. It could be that their presence around is a complete fluke, but it seems too much of a coincidence."

"You think this ship is the one that took T'Pol?" Travis asked softly.

"One chance out of two it is," Archer replied, "though I'm starting to think it's more like 80/20."

"Perhaps we could split from the Nahr, let them go after one while we follow the other." Hoshi proposed.

Next to her, Reed nodded. "That's a thought, Captain. It's definitely a good way to clone ourselves."

"I like the thought. We can tell the Nahr to follow the Qaybos ship." Archer was still looking at the screen.

"The Vulcans are better matched for the Orion ship," pointed Schuyler. Archer absent-mindedly nodded, then stopped and turned, staring at the table, blood slowly draining from his cheeks. Around him, faces went from the perplexed to the appalled.

"What did you just say, Schuyler?" Archer was done trying not to spook the crewman. Schuyler nervously took a step back, swallowed three times. Archer used the silence to press his point. "You said Orion ship. Why? What makes you think it's an Orion ship?"

Having to explain his methodology put the Specialist back in his comfort zone. "Of course, Captain. During off-hours I have been compared the warp signature of the ship we're trailing with the Starfleet database. It's a lot of work, but I have come to the conclusion that it is an Orion craft. Ninety percent probability." Now he was quoting probabilities. Schuyler had always been socially challenged. Next to him, Reed was scowling. That meant it was something Schuyler should have told every and anyone.

Archer closed his eyes, seized the bridge of his nose, breathed out slowly, once, twice, three times. "When did you find this out, Schuyler?"

"Oh, a few days back. It didn't seem pertinent."

Archer looked meaningfully at Reed. "How about you let Lieutenant Reed or I decide what is pertinent, Schuyler, hmm?" His attention went back to Malcolm. "Does that change your analysis?"

Reed was staring at the screen in the center of the command console. "If the attacker was Orion, they grabbed everyone aboard the transport for slave-trading. They're very far from Orion space or any processing station." Reed looked at Archer. "How would you feel if you were a slaver with over twenty Vulcans aboard?"

"Not very safe. I'd probably lock myself in my cabin and throw away the key." Archer wrily commented.

"So you'd try and get rid of them as soon as you can. Hence you'd look for a buyer."

"And the ships that go to Qaybos for market week are mostly trader ships. Traders buy things. Sometimes they steal them." It all was starting to make eminent sense.

"Like T'Pol." The two men looked at each other in understanding.

"Why do you think this trader wants Vulcans?" Hoshi brought up.

Archer looked at her. "That, we don't know. Hopefully once we find the trader it will lead us to all the Vulcans that were taken from Qaybos." Everyone understood the unspoken message, if they were still alive.

"And T'Pol. And Soval, And Trip." Schuyler blurted out, needing a set of three.

Archer was a man of action, and now he had a mission. "Ensign Sato, send a communiqué to the Nahr, all due speed, encrypted. Explain what we think, tell them we're going after the Qaybos ship. Travis will provide the coordinates of the Orion ship and projected flight path. Tell them we think they're headed back to Orion, possibly with Vulcans to be sold as slaves, we don't know. But we have to split, in case they sold any to the second ship."

He looked around the room. "Everyone, to your stations." They got work to do.


	14. The Forest 14 - The Arrival

xxx

 _ **Makatradr's Ship**_

The silence. It was the silence. It was getting to him. He felt like he was in a crypt, among twenty bodies prone in haphazard poses, all semi-comatose. They were not dead, but the silence was the fabric of death. Not so much silence as an absence of noise. An absence of... all of a sudden Trip put his finger on it, the revelation both and answer and a discovery. What he was feeling was the absence of psionic presence from twenty Vulcan minds. How could he even feel it? Psionic abilities were not in the Human toolkit, he shouldn't be able to tell when Vulcan minds were quiet.

It was a short engineering step from the quiet Vulcan minds to the weird helmets with which they were coiffed and the logical conclusion these must be psionic-suppressing, the Vulcans underneath in a state of half deaf and half blind repose. That was the eerie quietness behind the absence of talk.

Trip sidled over to Soval as far as the restraints allowed. "Can you hear me?" He extended a leg and gently prodded the Ambassador, aware this might be a crime under some protocol, up to him to file a complaint once this was all behind. There was no response. Of course, the man couldn't see or hear him. Finally, with a slow, stirring motion and great effort, Soval spoke. "You... are... unaffected... it seems..."

"Unaffected by what?"

The older man shuddered, raising Trip's hackles. For a Vulcan to do that, something momentous was going on.

"What is it?" Trip asked again. What exactly were those devices gracing the Vulcans' temples?

Soval spoke though clenched teeth, trying to articulate." These devices... they seem... to suppress... the mind."

Trip hastened to say "Listen, if it's painful, you don't have to talk"

Soval shook his head. "It is not .. painful.. but very... disconcerting." He swallowed, scanned around as if trying to get the bearings he couldn't see. "It is like... floating in… weightless… ness…no bearings… of up or down… right and left." He swallowed again. "Our minds are ... not... structured ... to handle... the chaos. The loneliness... is… overbearing."

"Anything I can do to help?"

The older man seemed to think awhile. Then he turned his head in Trip's direction though he as off by quite a few gradients. "Talk to us..." Soval said. "If you are… not so… affected, talk… to us. It provides a... mooring."

That's when Trip realized all the heads in the room were turned towards him. Him, who had been a designated victim, and still didn't know what their plans were for him. To help Soval, yes, the two of them were in this together. But the others... The others were the reason he was here in this godforsaken hold on this godforsaken ship instead of on Enterprise, helping find T'Pol, who needed to be found. A white hot ball of anger twisted his guts. "Why should I help them?" Trip's tone was cutting. "As far as I'm concerned they're enemy soldiers."

"The aliens... who took us... bring us together."

Trip scoffed at the notion. "Bring us together... That's peachy. And then, once the danger is past, what, they go back to what they planned?! What is it they intended to do with us anyway?" Trip looked around at the room. "You heard me!" He shouted. "What were you going to do to us?! That's going to help my decision!" He could feel Soval's reprobation from where he was seated. Fine, let the older man frown on his emotional display. See how he'd like it when he'd hear what the enemy was planning.

Soval cocked his head, seeming to consider. Some of the prone Vulcans shuffled, though no sound was heard. Then one of them spoke, in Vulcan, haltingly, his speech as slow and slurred as Soval's had been. There was the hiss of a breath through Soval's teeth or perhaps he had said something. The man fell quiet. Trip tried to match sounds to what he knew, but this was beyond his fluency in Vulcan. "What did he say?" He finally asked the ambassador.

The silence that answered seem to be a collective repugnance, as if Soval was not the only one who didn't want to speak. Soval finally explained. "They were going to kill us," he confirmed. "In a public broadcast. A pre-Awakening ritual."

Trip didn't reply, then when he thought perhaps Soval would try to stop there, prompted him again. "And?"

This time he was sure, the silence was one of embarrassment. "It is called Mazhyon-Sahriv.[1]" Soval seemed to gather the moral strength to keep going. "Inspired by the sandstorms of Tat'Sahr. Fierce enough to reduce a man to bones in eight hours. The sand abrades the skin, then the flesh. It is similar to being flayed alive inch by inch."

Just as Trip was going to prompt again, he realized what Soval was saying. If he had been angry before, that was nothing to how he felt now. "That settles it. They can all go to hell." He said out loud enough for all to hear. It struck him how appropriate the phrase was. Without psionic input, they were hanging out in limbo, like roaming souls in search of redemption. Which wouldn't come from him.

These... these... people... would have killed him publicly in a most painful death?! They deserved every inch of what they received.

xxx

 _ **Orion Slaver**_

"Dozem, get us out of here!" Ngekkom shouted, half-up from his chair, staring at the gargantuan ship that had just filled the air. They all knew the cigar shape, the dull red ochre. Vulcan!

Ngeguk turned to him. "Good thing we're got rid -"

"Muzzle that snout of yours!" yelled Ngekkom. The aliens' pointy ears were exquisitely sensitive, they might hear what Ngeguk would have said. The last thing any of them needed to know was that they'd had Vulcans in the hold. They didn't look too kindly on Orions slavery, especially where it concerned their own.

Dozem turned to look back at him, showing with a helpless frown how little he could do in terms of evasive maneuvers. All he wanted was to go home.

Ngekkom shot a baleful glance at the screen then listened to reason and sat himself down, schooling his demeanor into feigned joviality. With a nod at Dozem, he ordered the alien hail answered.

xxx

 _ **Makatradr's Ship**_

Time blinked by, every minute an eternity of silence. Trip had maintained physical contact with Soval, intuitively knowing that would provide an anchoring of sorts, or perhaps it was something he had learned from T'Pol. In any case there was no worry of thought exchange. An hour went by, then two, possibly three. The anger swelling his chest was lessening, however hard he tried to fan the flames back to a level of intense offense.

That was when Soval decided to speak again. Trip had to recognize that the ambassador was an expert at timing.

"The rebels know that... when Captain Archer and T'Pol were on The Forge... you and I alerted the Andorians." Trip noted Soval's elocution was somewhat better. The anchor thing seemed to be helping.

Just as he replied, Trip realized who was an enemy soldier was a question of side. As they were to him, he was to them "Is that why they took me?" It didn't seem likely the rebels had set up the Feurata attack just to get a hold of him, he was of such little consequence in the greater realm of things.

One of the prone Vulcans moved slightly, managed to utter "...No..." and fell silent again. Trip eyed him through narrowed eyes, mentally clothing him with a different kind of helmet. Was this the one who had selected him? He remembered the words 'This one' and then the darkness of sleep.

"They were not... expecting the Enterprise to be there." Soval was speaking softly. The one who had spoken seemed to rally, throwing all his energies into saying more. "The Federation... it was... Vulcan... Federation." The man fell silent again. Trip nodded, understanding the chopped intent, they had wanted to pull Vulcan from the Federation. It also explained Soval. Without the preeminent ambassador, Vulcan's relationship with Earth would be weakened, at least until they found a successor that could bridge both worlds, which could take forever.

"So I was a bonus." He drawled.

A certain angle in the cock of the head let him know the concept didn't translate. "The cherry on top? Icing on the cake?" That also wasn't going anywhere. Trip rued the hunger that fixated his mind on food. He could think of nothing else. After a couple of minutes, an idea came to him. "I was an unexpected favorable outcome." He could almost feel the mental nods of twenty Vulcans finally understanding what he was saying.

Okay, but that didn't make it any better. These people had still abducted him and were still planning to kill him. Painfully.

"We worked together... against V'Las." Soval confirmed. Trip was unsure if he was trying to explain why the rebels would see him as an enemy, or remind him the two of them could work together again. "The rebels are fiercely loyal... to V'Las." Of course, that meant he was the enemy. "Some never knew anything else. Some were not as hostile as others." Trip thought back to the healer and the ones he called muscle one and muscle two. He wished Soval would shut up and quit humanizing the rebels - wait, could you say that about Vulcans...? But Soval was still going. "It would be illogical... to help them."

That got Trip's attention. There was something there. What better answer than to serve them with a good healthy dose of illogic? Make illogic their saving grace. There was something eminently satisfying about it.

He suddenly understood what Soval was aiming for. If he helped the rebels, they would be owing a debt to their enemy. Owing their sanity to the illogical _qomi_. It would be a complete rewrite of their rules of engagement, turn their world upside down, possibly push some over the edge, away from V'Las. The idea of helping was not as repugnant. To Soval, softly, he said "I'll do it," then out loud to the crowd, "I'll think about it."

Trip smiled to himself. He had just thought of the perfect way to fulfill his promise to Soval. This was going to be a lot of fun indeed.

xxx

 _ **Vulcan**_

"What would thee tell me?" T'Pau looked at the tall and dark man who had just entered her office, Minister Sphelt at his side.

"Minister T'Pau." The man inclined his head. "We have confirmed the plans of the rebels were to publicly execute Ambassador Soval and the Human. The man paused, the tiniest sign of tension around his eyes. "The Mazhyon-Sahriv"

There was a slight widening of the eyes from both T'Pau and Sphelt. T'Pau didn't otherwise react. "Very well. Have all the members of the group been apprehended?" The question was directed at Sphelt.

"It is difficult to say." The security minister answered. "If we go by the roster, yes, but the rosters are only the openly avowed. There may be others that held views aligned with Vlas and are still waiting to be convinced."

T'Pau nodded. One did not change an entire culture overnight. There were many who stepped on her side more out of disfavor with V'Las than commitment to her cause. At that moment Minister Kourak requested access to her office suite and she exchanged a glance with Sphelt. Vulcans like him, faithful servants of the old regime, could still be wavering given the opportunity. They would eventually become strong adherents of the new regime, of that she had no doubt. Surak's logic, when properly unveiled, was absolutely compelling.

"Minister T'Pau" Kourak nodded his respect. She interrogated him with an eyebrow. He obliged. "We have received word that the Nahr has intercepted the Orion slaver. There were no Vulcans on board, at least, no longer. The Nahr is asking what you would do with the prisoners."

"Do we know who was there?"

"They confirmed the ship had held Ambassador Soval and his aide T'Agad. And also the Human." Kourak didn't know about T'Agad, it had been decided nobody would know until they were found. "The Orions sold them to unknown aliens. Iphlins I believe they call them. That was the ship Enterprise went after. Starfleet has had no word."

T'Pau reflected. The Orions may well have saved Soval's life and that of the Human, but then handed them over to unknown aliens, perhaps to be killed. They would not destroy the Orion ship, that much was certain. At question was the length of their incarceration..

"Let the Council convene, we'll decide together." She told Kourak. Taken alone, the decision would have marked her as a despot. "And have the Nahr rejoin. Enterprise."

xxx

 _ **T'Agad Story**_

The voice came back, the voice was what took her from a starless void back to life. She hated the voice, hated it for wanting it so desperately, for feeling so relieved when it came back, when it lifted her from her lonely purgatory.

Every hour the voice spoke, an oasis in he middle of the night, cool water quenching the desert thirst. It was her weakness to want to hear the voice again yet as much as she fought, she almost whimpered with relief every time the voice came.

The voice was that of the despised _qomi_ , once again showing the illogic of his species, helping those who would have him literally ripped to shreds. His illogic carried in his stories. Instead of well-ordered Vulcan myths following passion through its logical progression, these stories were abominations, full of plants that grew to the sky, people wakened from healing trances with kisses instead of forceful slaps, half-piscatory females that spoke underwater. Half of it didn't make sense. More than half of it. Each time the stories changed, always impractical, never logical. But whenever one of the rebels brought up the lack of logic, the voice would just chuckle and go on.

Once the voice was silent, the listeners were left with the illogical stories, trying to figure out the how's and why's. She knew what a pumpkin was, where others asked and were taken on meandering paths to pies and giving thanks and evening saints. But how could a pumpkin become a carriage? The molecular structure would have to expand beyond any laws of physics in the known universe. She imagined the aliens on Beehaxyr could craft a glass slipper, one that didn't break even when worn. But it seemed very impractical. As impractical as trying it on the feet of all the maidens in the kingdom. Extrapolating for the average size of an earthen kingdom, the one it fit would have grown older by the time they got to her and her feet would have grown to average size, assuming their small size had been the mark of an immature stature.

The illogic was heart clenching. At times she yearned for the nausea-inducing emptiness that sucked her between the tales, a place without beginning or end, where V'Las was and wasn't. And yet.

Yet, every hour she longed for the voice, a beacon in the dark. When the voice came back, with it came the light.

xxx

 _ **Enterprise**_

Excerpt from Captain's log - stardate xxxx.31 – 1452 hours - This log is made by Ensign Hoshi on behalf of Captain Archer. Enterprise has been following the unknown ship since we parted ways with the Nahr. Ensign Mayweather has predicted the alien vessel's path and we're following at reduced speed to not lose its track. Captain Archer and Lieutenant Malcolm Reed have been holed up in the command center in talks with various members of the Federation to try and identify the new alien species. This is an unknown corner of space and we are proceeding very carefully. We do not know how aggressive the new aliens will be and we have to assume based on their trade with the Orions that they are hostile. There may be other hostile species in the quadrant. Hopefully we will find the alien ship without being attacked.

Hoshi cut the recording and sighed. Should she add how frustrated Archer was with the speed of their progress? She decided not to. No need to record that they kept falling further behind. At this rate they'd find the alien ship with a three-day delay.

xxx

 _ **Makatradr's Ship**_

He felt the engines stop at the exact moment they shut off. There was something about the subliminal vibration of engines that had always run through him.

Trip sighed.

Stopping meant they had arrived, soon he could stop telling stories, he hoped. Not that it had been entirely unpleasant, apart for the need to stay up day and night, almost. There had definitely been fun aspects to it, especially the collective shock at the stories he told. He chuckled again to himself. He had a feeling the Vulcans had been served more illogic than they could absorb in their lifetime. Inch by inch indeed.

For ten long days now he had held them together, making contact through the disorientation, the loneliness he couldn't begin to understand. He had opened with Andersen then the Grimm Brothers, had thrown in Aesop for good measure and every Terran myth he could remember. He was plumb running out of tales. The wager was that along the way, per force, he would open the rebels' minds to other possibilities. In a world where logic held no sway, everything they believed, everything they stood for had to be rethought. Or so he hoped. Perhaps not quite what Soval had in mind but he would be hard pressed to complain, anchored to Trip through physical contact when the others had to wait.

Stopping also meant the unknown, a port or a planet, potential dangers ahead, who knew. He would have much preferred the hum of engines. On the other hand, a port or a planet may mean conveniences, per chance some water for a shower. After four weeks, he ranked worse than a he-goat. Quite possibly another Human offense.

A few hours after the engines stopped, the doors to the cell noiselessly swooshed open and a garrison of aliens came in. Yellow eyes, mottled skin, furry scruffs and sharp fangs, not that tall but built for speed. Only Trip could see them, Vulcan eyes and ears occulted by psi-suppressing machines. One by one the Vulcans were taken out of the room and brought back in, helmet-free and quite unconscious.

Finally it was Trip's turn.

* * *

[1] Mazhyon-Shariv: torture-killing of pre-Awakening times, consisting of stripping the victim's skin inch by inch over a period of days.


	15. The Forest 15 - The Hunt Starts

xxx

 ** _Trip_**

Trip looked around at the space he was brought in, by all appearances a doorless round room, metallic walls gleaming all the way to... he couldn't see the ceiling. A voice boomed around him but not matter how far he craned his neck, the source couldn't be seen.

"You are not like them." The voice said. Since up to now the only aliens taken out of the ship and brought back were Vulcans,Trip astutely concluded this was what the voice referred to.

"I am Human" he replied. Might as well let them know them about Humans early on. "And what are you?"

The sound that came back was like paper being ripped. "Shlibs?" Trip hazarded.

"Aye shlins," The voice came back, "we are I'Shlins."

"Nice meeting y'all." Trip responded. "Now if you could release us, we could all get to talk and know each other." He didn't really expect to be taken at his word. Predictably, the speaker ignored the request.

"Do you have any Sighting?" came the next question.

Trip thought a while, chewing on his lip. What did they mean by sighting? He could see, if that there was no doubt, but so could the Vulcans.. "I dunno what you mean." He replied.

"Our seers will find out." The voice said. Nothing happened. Trip went on looking at the steel walls, waiting to see what would com next. Five minutes went by, he was still waiting when all of a sudden he felt a sense of heat at the back of his head. The heat became throbbing and the throbbing, pain, first a mild headache then a ful blown migraine. Trip closed his eyes, hands to his temples, part of him wondering what was happening, part of him hoping it soon would end. He opened his eyes again and almost startled. The cell had disappeared, he was in the white space.

An unhealthy white space, worse than last time he'd seen, a white vapor hiding everything in sight. Like a scene from a horror movie where the fog hung in tatters to the trees. But there were no trees, just an unhealthy looking white space. He needed to find T'Pol. His heart beat faster. Joining his hands together he hollered her name at the mist. There was no sound, no movement other than rolling clouds of billowing white smog mocking him with his echo "Ol...Ol...Ol". He knew she must be there, hidden or in hiding. To find her he would have to be patient. He could sense her somehow, almost at the edge of the white space. Why wasn't she coming in? He brought his hands to his mouth again to call her name, but the last syllable died on his lips. He was back in the round cell.

The voice boomed again."He has Sighting. He will join the others."

A higher pitched voice cut through. "Not this one, he's too valuable. He doesn't have any Sighting to speak of, we certainly couldn't tell on the ship."

Trip wondered how he could understand all these people, these I'Shlins, but obviously understand them he did. He looked at the walls of the cell and still couldn't see any electronics. Was the voice speaking directly in his head? Was that why he could understand it? How did he know the last one to have spoken was the captain of the ship in which hold he'd been held?

Obviously the captain was not happy. Having sighting may not be a good thing. Not where the captain was concerned, at least. He was going at it again, arguing against the other voices. "You call that Sighting? In my family we wouldn't bother to get up for the hunt of such. It's not really Sighting—

"Be still!" Another voice boomed, putting an end to the complaints. "It may not be organic but he has Sighting through his connection to another."

Trip pulled it all together. They must be talking about his bond with T'Pol. Sighting must be psionic abilities. It explained Soval and the Vulcans and the helmets.

He wasn't sure if he should argue about the fact his psionic abilities were that of a midsize stone, especially since he had a feeling having sighting was not a positive. In the end he decided he'd rather throw his lot with Soval, wherever that might take him. He waited, arms crossed, until the captain finished his grumbling, and he was brought back to the ship.

xxx

 _ **Lidlbeut**_

Lidlbeut wrapped the fabric band tightly around the alien's wrist, tighter than she had the week before, the alien kept getting thinner. T'Pol nodded that the task was complete. Lidlbeut couldn't help staring at her friend's feet, the cyclonic ulcers kept getting bigger. T'Pol shrugged in response "It is the climate, there is nothing that can be done."

"We could wrap them also." She commented.

"I have not much fabric left." Lidlbeut understood that T'Pol needed it more for her hands. Without a steady throw, the lance may not go as deep, there would be less meat for the tribe offspring.

She almost blurted out that she could hunt for two, that T'Pol could rest, but she knew that was not quite true. One day, she would be good enough that she could hunt for two. That day, she would make her friend and mentor rest, and let her live long and peaceful days without a care. She would see to her hands and feet, hunting so many l'mo'raes there would be pelts plenty to make fabric with. She couldn't wait for that day.

In the meantime she took T'Pol's other hand, ready to redo the wrap again, a harshly fought over privilege, when she felt T'Pol freeze. She quickly looked up but her mentor was stone-stiff yet trembling, seeing shadows Lidlbeut couldn't see and shaking her head 'no'. T'Pol recoiled, turning her head away. Lidlbeut looked around but there was nothing to be seen. She turned back to her friend, wondering what was going on, when she caught a whiff over the wind.

Sighting! Sighting was being used! Though she could tell T'Pol was not the one at fault, eyes unfocused, lost in a place that had her trembling and that Lidlbeut couldn't reach.

* * *

T'Pol looked at the white space from the outside, uncertain how she could see it and not be in it. How did it come about? Was someone in there? The white fog was hiding everything in its midst. She had memories that someone should be there, someone close to her, perhaps her herself, but that was decades in the past, before the I'Ph'Lis erased all memories of long ago. She felt drawn to enter the white space, she had to go find him. Was it a him? She was drawn there and yet she didn't want to go, the brightest memory was one of abject pain. She froze at the edge of the mists, hearing the mists coalesce into an echo. Was it her name that was being called? It sounded like T'Pol.

The white mists shone brighter and T'Pol suddenly knew that he was there. Blinding pain surrounded his name but still she found it and grabbed it and wouldn't let go. Trip. That was his name. He was the one calling her and she had to respond, parted from him and never parted, drawn like a salmon to the stream. The light was blinding, she raised her hand to shade it and knew without a doubt that he was near. She needed to go to him. The thought had hardly sprung when the pain started, bone deep, tearing her thoughts apart. The I'Ph'Lis would have none of it, and yet to Trip's image she was wedded. She wouldn't let go.

The white space was gone in a heartbeat, leaving her sitting there, shaking like a leaf, one hand wrapped and one almost unwrapped, Lidlbeut at her side with mouth agape. The pain in her head was mind splitting. With the young I'Shlin's help she caught her breath and her spirits, finally settling down into a heap.

* * *

Lidlbeut stared silently at her alien friend intently, collapsed at her feet, but nothing further happened. She crouched on her jambs, keeping an eye on her friend, trying to find her way through thoughts she shouldn't have. Using the Sighting was forbidden. But T'Pol had not used the Sighting, she saw it when it happened. If one didn't use the Sighting and one was a victim, where was the offense? There should be a different measure. There had to be. Elderweiss was wise and the tribe was old, it couldn't be the first time this had happened.

Lidlbeut felt confident an exception would be made, that Sighting imposed rather than chosen would not offend. And because she was growing into her own, she felt sure this is how it would be and there was no need to alert Elderweiss.

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

Trip passed a grateful hand over his freshly shorn chin. Once he had told the I'Shlins what he needed, they had been quite accommodating, leading him to hope there would be an innocuous ending to the questions about sighting. They all had been moved to some kind of compound in the morning, had been fed and watered, groomed and bathed, he hoped it was not in preparation for a sale of some kind. He looked at the pink sky and the half dozen pale orange suns sitting there. Other than the colors, it could have been any place on earth, though drier than the place of his birth.

He walked over to Soval, cross-legged in a meditation pose. To a man and one woman, the Vulcans looked haggard and drawn. Psionic isolation was obviously an ordeal, no matter his efforts at compensating. Trip made a mental note of the chink in the Vulcan armor and crouched next to the older man. "How are you feeling?" he asked. The eyebrow that singed him in reply was a reminder this was no easy question for a Vulcan. "I mean, all of you," he stammered, knowing this was not really what he meant.

The ambassador seemed to remember his bearing. "We will recover," he finally said, "though it would be preferable if we were on Vulcan."

Before Trip could reply, a commotion broke through at the other end of the compound. The two men looked up to see a contingent of I'Shlins stride in, all about the same height, mottled fur gleaming in the sky, clad in short uniforms. There was no mistaking the weapons gleaming in their hands, possibly unusual design but the aim was very clear. There were twenty-six of them, more than the Vulcans. The man in front started speaking and Trip recognized the voice. That was the captain of the alien ship, who ruefully glanced at Trip before raising his voice to a roar and addressing the entire compound.

They all understood every word. When he had finished, silence settled on the compound, the Vulcans didn't move as the aliens streamed away. Trip turned to Soval, speechlessly indignant. But the older man was already up, addressing the Vulcans. "We need to organize."

"That's it?! We need to organize?! That's all you have to say." Trip was almost stuttering.

Soval turned a cool gaze on him. "What would you rather do?" He seemed interested in the answer, as were the half -dozen Vulcans in close proximity who somehow managed to stir closer, even though none moved.

"I don't know. It's just..." Trip couldn't finish the thought, realizing that what he missed was the reaction of his peers, the consternation, the anger, the horror, the anger again, all the Human emotions that would have accompanied what they heard. Instead, the absolute calm that had greeted the I'Shlin captain's words made him feel alone, adrift, separated from his kind. "We can't let this happen." He finally said, realizing he would come across like an emotional Human. Once again.

The older man looked back at him not unkindly. "Our... experience... on the ship may have been extreme but you also have been cut off from your own for several weeks now." The ambassador thought a while, seeming to look for an explanation he could provide. "The decision is out of our hands. We now need to organize and survive." Soval spoke slightly louder, his voice easily carrying through the compound. "We shall all work together. You are an engineer, we will need your skills." Trip looked around. These were rebels, who had been ready to cut down Soval and everyone in their path. Already he had graciously agreed to help them. And now Soval would have him work with them?

He didn't have to voice his opposition.

"Why should we align ourselves with you? We will survive on our own." The challenge was swift, coming from a Vulcan with long auburn hair. Trip did a double-take, the man could have been Kov's older brother. He wondered about the hair, so unusual in a Vulcan.

"Who is speaking?"

"I am Mashana. Of the tribe of the _ha'gelan qaavoc_ "

Soval asked the man silently for a few seconds. "Safety comes from numbers. Allied we are stronger. The lone _qaavoc_ firs gets eaten." Trip was watching the interplay intently, knowing somehow it was much more ancient than their current plight.

"The ancient ones do not ally themselves with the weaker." Mashana spat in reply.

"The ancient ones are no more." Soval's reply was curt.

"They still are, and they are pure in spirit. Our cousins are the true Vulcans."

Soval managed to scoff without saying a word higher than the other. "And from the gods they are descended, I know. Whoever goeth forth alone shall quicker encounter them."

"We will see how I fare but death shall be sweeter than the alliance you propose."

Soval turned to the group. "Any other claim to defeat the odds? Talk now and step aside. Whoever believes our strength lies together, join me, the time for planning is overripe."

"Ally yourself with a _qomi_? Do you pretend to recreate the federation?" Mashana addressed himself to the group, his tone edged with sarcasm.

"The Federation has experience defeating Romulan plans." Soval replied matter-of-factly.

Trip saw Mashana's eyes widen in shock. Soval had just struck where it hurt. The long-haired Vulcan strode to the other side of the compound, a handful of stragglers following in his footsteps though not close enough that they looked like they would fight together. It seemed each one would go it alone.

The rest of the Vulcans edged closer to Soval. He turned to them and Trip. "Engineer, you will do an inventory of what we have on hand that could serve as a weapon. Everyone else, I shall talk to each of you alone and find out how best you can serve."

xxx

 _ **Elderweiss**_

The old I'Shlin sat on her stump as if on a throne,watching the tribe come back together for the night. She suddenly sprung up, tasting the air above their heads, there was a whiff there. Something she knew, something forbidden. She had hoped this day wouldn't happen, that the alien's life would ebb away without her guiding hand.

Stepping down from her stump she walked to the hut where dwelled Lidlbeut's mother. "Have you seen Lidlbeut?" she asked.

"She and the alien went hunting. She is getting better by the day, in one week she killed three l'mo'raes," the proud mother answered.

Elderweiss didn't reply, whiskers pointed upwards, tasting the sky, desolately finding there what she feared. She finally turned her white gaze onto the youth's mother. "The time has come for her to hunt alone."


	16. The Forest 16 - The Hunt - Edelweiss

xxx

 _ **Y'Cr'Stea**_

The group of Vulcans stood in the morning sun, loosely congregated around Soval. Mashana walked past them, his entire countenance one of pure contempt. A handful of others walk by also, not paying attention to the group, each intent on its own journey.

Soval turned to Trip. "What weapons do we have?"

The engineer shook his head. "Very little apart from feet and fists. We," with a movement of his head, he included the other men who had worked with him, "tried to pry some of the fixtures, without success."

"Very well. Finding weapons shall be the first order of the day. We already went over how we would deploy." He said something in Vulcan and the entire group fanned out into a line over a hundred yards across and started walking.

Mashana was already rounding the first hill ahead, turned and looked at the group before disappearing over its crest. Trip couldn't see his face but he could well imagine the sneer that animated it.

xxx

 _ **The Forest**_

Lidlbeut entered the hut, noting the absence of the lances usually leaning against the outside wall. The guards nodded at her as she walked in, knowing why she came. They had grabbed T'Pol as soon as they came back from hunting l'mo'raes, giving them no time to speak and explain.

T'Pol didn't looked up at her. Lidlbeut crouched in front of the sitting Vulcan, carefully setting the container between the two of them. "The tribe has spoken." She softly said. "The I'Ph'Lis must be taken. Three times what we usually take. You will not survive."

T'Pol looked up from where she was cross-legged in a meditation pose but didn't reply.

Lidlbeut kept talking, her mane slightly flaring. "Since I didn't let Elderweiss know about the Sighting, I was tasked with handing you the drink."

At that T'Pol flinched. She looked straight at Lidlbeut. "Why punish a youth for what could not be prevented? You were aware of the sighting no earlier than Elderweiss."

"I told them you didn't do it, that it came upon you. I was there, I knew." She sighed. "But Elderweiss is as hard as the V'Bu'Rwe tree. She will not yield or bend."

T'Pol flinched again and Lidlbeut realized the movement was not one of reaction to what she was saying. "Are you in pain?" She asked. T'Pol looked at her with haunted eyes. "The memories. Remembering is a struggle."

"The I'Ph'Lis will take it all away." Lidlbeut couldn't help thinking it would take even more away.

"I do not wish to be parted again from what I can remember."

Lidlbeut looked at the rough planks, somehow pleased her mentor would not easily yield. "What was the Sighting about?" She asked instead. She had been curious to know ever since she had witnessed it.

"It is... someone I know. From long ago. He is somewhere nearby, I don't know how. I need to go to him."

"Someone you know?"

"His name is Trip. He is... my _t'hyla_ , my mate." T'Pol grabbed her temples in pain, still struggling against the fog of the I'Ph'Lis. Lidlbeut opened her eyes wide in shock. She had never thought that someone else had a claim on her mentor's mind. Yet she was old enough to know about mates and coupling, and that she would one day favor another I'Shlin like her mother favored a couple. How could such Sighting be wrong, between two halves of a coupling. It was not an offense against the tribe but a personal calling.

She stared at the drink on the floor, losing herself in the swirls on its surface, thinking thoughts of right and wrong and answers that were neither. What would she do if she were Elderweiss? Sighting was forbidden, but was that always right? What if Sighting was necessary to save a tribe member, would Elderweiss then be looser? All of a sudden, she knew without a doubt that the elder wouldn't.

Lidlbeut raised the drink between the two of them holding it at eye level. "Only I may come out of the hut. Elderweiss is waiting. The drink cannot be poured on the ground or she will feel it. If I give it to you, I betray my mentor and my friend. If I do not, I betray my tribe and my future. I do not think in this my tribe is right, but what other path is there for me to take?"

xxx

 _ **Y'Cr'Stea**_

The line was walking briskly and carefully. A yell down one side stopped everyone mid-step. Trip didn't understand the Vulcan well enough, it sounded like 'over here'. Next to him Soval whispered 'Go' and he quickly went to see. The Vulcan's name was Poryk, and by the time he reached him Poryk had already walked over to an unnatural mass hanging from a tree. Trip nodded at him and both went looking for a couple of large stones.

The mass crunched with a satisfying noise, revealing what looked like mechanical parts. Soval came over while the others held the line, Vulcan discipline and all. Trip showed the older man the lens in his hand. "A camsensor."

Soval nodded. "It seems our hunters are not adverse to manipulating the odds."

Trip almost did a double-take. Soval had said 'our' hunters so casually, as if it were an everyday occurrence to serve as live prey to a group of armed hunters, in some kind of sick safari. Once again, he found himself wishing for a slightly higher degree of pathos, some angst and anger. His luck that he would be stuck with a group of Vulcans. At least T'Pol... he found his thoughts shouldn't go there, it would only distract him. He looked around. She was nearby, he just knew it. Once this hunt thing was done with, he would go find her.

Poryk had finished extracting all the parts from the camsensor. "We could use the cable for an ahn-woon."

Trip nodded in response. "Let's grab all the parts. We may have need for them."

"You know what these look like. Let everyone know, the next ones should be easier to find." Soval unhurriedly walked back to his position in line, waiting for Trip to join him before giving the signal to proceed, Trip hoisting on his shoulder the rucksack they had made from various clothing donations. Eventually, they might have enough parts to make something resembling a weapon.

xxx

 _ **Enterprise**_

"Thirty-eight point seven years?"

"One year for each Vulcan they took, four years for each one they killed, three years for Trip, 10% off for the fact that their actions prevented the untimely demise of both Trip and Soval." Toussaint was reading off the padd in his hands.

"They were going to kill Trip?" As he said it, Archer realized he had always known the odds were they would. But he had always carefully pushed the thought aside.

Toussaint looked up at him. "That's what we're made to understand though they're not coming out and spelling it out. You know Vulcans." His frustrated tone plainly told of teeth pulling and time better spent.

"What about the search for T'Pol?" Archer couldn't help thinking it was a good thing T'Pol wasn't aboard Enterprise to know that Trip had been abducted and worse. She and Trip had hit it off and he had no desire to see her retreat into full Vulcan mode, which he had a sixth sense would happen if anything bad came to Trip.

Toussaint scoffed. "The Navarre is still in the Ceplephus sector." It was obvious this too was one of his sore spots. "A wild goose chase. Still nothing to report." He was clipping his words with repressed anger. This seemed to trigger another thought. He looked up at Archer. "Also, T'Pau is sending the Nahr after you." He quickly caught his phrasing. "'To rejoin you' is what she said. You really think Soval is on this alien ship?"

"Soval and Trip." Archer was offended the man wouldn't include his engineer. If the men had been on the Vulcan transport and the Orion slaver and were not dead, where exactly did Toussaint think they were. Overall, he'd had about enough of Toussain. He certainly understood that the admiral was feeling a lack of control where Vulcan was concerned, and if so, join the club. For possibly the first time in his career, Vulcan was actually helping Archer's own plans and he had nothing to complain about.

But what Toussaint said was actually even better. "They're coming to join us? Where are they right now?" Vulcan ships could go to warp seven, hopefully the Nahr would be there before they arrived at the alien planet. Archer wasn't kin on showing up alone at the doorstep of people who traded in Vulcans.

xxx

 _ **Y'Cr'Stea**_

Vulcans could run. An entire month in the hold of an alien ship and still they ran as if their muscles had never been idle. Perhaps a little more slowly and a bit less steadily than they would otherwise have. Trip watched the groups of scouts fan out down the hill. In the past several hours they had uncovered, discovered and broken every last one of the camsensors in the broad path they covered by walking in a line across the countryside. Once they had cleared a few miles of land, they had veered sideways away from the path ahead and its promised land of freedom to the top of a hill that they had spotted, a smooth outcrop that gave them a vantage point and Soval had dispatched the scouts.

"What do we do now?" Trip asked.

Soval turned to him. "There are seventeen hours left." He looked around at the mid-day sky. "The scouts will be back in two point four hours. The hunters only hunt in the morning." According to the rules, _the rules!_ , of the hunt, Trip still sputtered indignantly at the thought there were actually regulations to this obscene parody, the hunters would only hunt twice a day, in the morning and in the evening, wanting to extend the recreational activities and not cull all the Vulcans right away. He didn't know what Soval thought, but seventeen hours seemed not so much that they could waste any.

"Do you think that's enough time?"

"We will have time to decide on a course of action and set it in motion." The older Vulcan had become their commanding officer.

"It will be easier for them to find us as a group." Trip pointed out. Someone had to say it. He could imagine avoiding the hunters on the run, but there were twenty targets?

Soval turned an impenetrable gaze on Trip. "Together we stay and together we survive. Perhaps the hunters will wish otherwise." Silence settled over the two men, pregnant with the possibility that it was not a good idea to hunt a troupe of Vulcans.

xxx

 ** _The Forest_**

The night was deep. In front of the alien's hut, Elderweiss was waiting. A loud keening suddenly erupted, lasted and lasted in heart-rending shrills and then silence fell. Still Elderweiss waited. At last Lidlbeut came out, staggering slightly, eyes to the ground.

"Is it done?" Elderweiss asked.

"It is done." Lidlbeut seemed ready to pass out.

"Very well. You can go now." Elderweiss looked at the youth stagger away. She would now know that the law of the tribe took precedence over personal preference.

xxx

 _ **Y'Cr'Stea**_

The discussion about which option to choose had been animated. Eventually a consensus had emerged, not the one Trip favored but he had two scores bodies at ease with the sand and one of him who wasn't. So... So he dug along with the rest of them. As Soval had said they survived together or not at all.

Dawn found him half-frozen, buried deep in the sand, worried that somehow he would move and be seen, waiting for the morning hunt to start and then be over, trying to breathe through the reeds in his mouth without upsetting the camouflage above him. Vulcans had an easier time of this, what with their ability to close their eyes to the sand and their minds to the risk.

Suddenly he felt a hand on his leg, knew it was Soval. The older man had talked to him at length about how he would help him enter a trance if the tension proved too high. Trip knew that the contact would be difficult to the Vulcan, that it was Soval's way of thanking him for keeping the group away from folly's doorstep all these weeks. Trip looked forward to stilling the worries in his mind. As he felt his heartbeat slow down, he thought back to the stories he told and how illogical they'd been for the Vulcans. He knew Soval was above petty revenge. At least he hoped.

And then it no longer mattered, he felt at peace with the world, hearing the silence of nature around him, snuggly held within his nest of sand.

Suddenly the whine of engines came overhead. But still his heartbeat didn't raise. It was all as it was meant to be, _kaiidth_ , nothing else could be done. Single-person crafts, two-people crafs, heavier transports, his engineering mind analyzed the sounds of the hunt. The I'Shlins were streaming ahead to where they thought the group was, all the way to the last sensor array they carefully triggered, unaware Soval had them back down so they would be in the hunters' back. Today was about learning the enemy's ways and staying alive. Trip noted the hunters' self-indulgence, going after their quarry in motorized crafts, using camsensors to keep track of their prey, there would be ways to make use of the welcome weakness.

The distant report of guns would have made him startle but for the trance. More gun sounds, concentrated far away. Then two crafts streaming by, their engines singing in victory. They'd been told that once victorious a hunter would leave the fold, keeping the odds better for the prey and, more importantly though unsaid, keeping the game afoot for the others. They'd also been told they would be safe and free if they reached some place at the end of the land, Trip didn't remember what they called it, it was too difficult to say.

The rest of the crafts flew overhead after another several hours. Silence fell. The group emerged. Twenty-three hunters remained.

xxx

 _ **The Forest**_

Elderweiss entered the hut, noting the absence of the lances usually leaning against the outside wall. The guards were no longer there, dismissed the night before. She steeled herself, the sight would be full of sorrow. She stepped in and felt her scruff bristle.

Elderweiss spent a long time staring at the void, finally shaking herself and mind-calling Lidlbeut.

There was no response.

Of course.

Like a fury denied she strode out of the hut, calling the guards to her side. In a few yards she was at Lidlbeut's mother's lair, calling the youth outside. Lidlbeut came out, looking lost in thought, and walked unsteadily to where Elderweiss towered in anger.

"Child, what have you done?!" The tone brooked no dissent. Behind her one by one the tribe members arrived, alerted to her unease, growling their dismay.

Lidlbeut didn't answer.

Faced with her silence, Elderweiss started berating the youth, when all of a sudden she had the echo of the same scene and the same words from Elderweisses of old and she learned that there had been other times like these, that the tyranny of the I'Ph'Lis had not always been for all. And yet the tribe had survived. She stopped her tirade, realizing as she did that the tribe members were aroused, they needed to be placated.

"The alien is gone." She finally declared. "Lidlbeut will help us find her trace."

"She should take her place."

Elderweiss mindsaw who had spoken. As Lidlbeut's mother behind her started her protest, she raised a gnarled hand, saving everyone's breath. "Elderweiss decides what is to be done. Lidlbeut will lead the search."

And as Elderweiss looked back at Lidlbeut, she saw that she herself had grown old, that protecting the tribe at all costs had led her to also chase shadows and she realized that once Lidlbeut had learned the ancient ways, she would become the next Elderweiss.


	17. The Forest 17 - The Hunt - T'Agad

xxx

 _ **The Forest**_

One does not become the best hunter of a tribe and remain unaware of its ways. T'Pol sensed those tracking her before they came near, following their progress through the shrieks of birds aflight, the murmur of words over the wind, even the scent in the air. The search party could have been better masked. That told her that somehow Lidlbeut was involved. The youth knew better than to alert a quarry to its impending doom.

Even though T'Pol had fled well ahead of the posse, her progress had been hobbled by night vision and general weakness. Running now would be of no service, the I'Shlins to a body were built for speed. She needed to imitate the wiliest prey and hide until the threat dissipated. T'Pol looked up at the V'Bu'Rwe trees, Lidlbeut had said I'Shins didn't climb. Quickly she clambered up not the tallest but the fullest one.

Well hidden along a limb and against the trunk, she waited for the posse's passing, thinking back to the night before, when Lidlbeut had raised the I'Ph'Lis at eye level and said, ' _Only I may come ouf of the hut. Elderweiss is waiting. The drink cannot be poured on the ground or she will feel it._ _If I give it to you, I betray my mentor and my friend. If I do not, I betray my tribe and my future. I do not think in this my tribe is right, but what other path is there for me to take?_ '

And then downed it, before T'Pol could unwind from her seated position and knock the potion off the youth's hands.

Lidlbeut had tried to be reassuring _'We can consume twice the drink and not feel it_.'

 _'And three times_?' T'Pol had asked.

 _'I do not know_.'

They had waited in tense silence as the poison coursed through Lidlbeut's limbs. After a very long time, Lidlbeut had started shaking, then the pain started and she was ululating her agony to the ceiling. Eventually the pain had receded, helped along by Vulcan mind techniques. Finally the crisis was over and Lidlbeut was again standing, reeling as if from too much drink and when she could walk again she had gone to meet Elderweiss while T'Pol waited for the guards to take their leave. Then she embarked on her journey to find Trip.

The noises of the approaching party jostled her from her reverie. She could sense well before she could see them that Lidlbeut was in the lead, Elderweiss close behind, and then a dozen I'Shlins, some with lances in their hands. Her lances. At least the ones they knew about. Two of the others she had carefully hidden in the woods were waiting for her a ways from the tree.

She had taught Lidlbeut well. The child had precisely followed her trace. When she realized the tracks ended in thin air she might remember that Vulcans knew how to climb and look up the trees. T'Pol tensed, senses on high alert.

Down on the ground, the I'Shlins gathered around a puzzled Lidlbeut. "Do you know which way she went?" Elderweiss asked. Lidlbeut made a show of looking around, before throwing her whole body behind a pointed finger. "That way!"

The posse left at a run, Elderweiss at the end. She looked long and slow at Lidlbeut as she passed her, then nodded in unspoken approval. Before she went with them down the slope, Lidlbeut turned and looked up at the tree. Brown eyes met yellow eyes, and with that last farewell Lidlbeut turned back and ran to catch the lead. T'Pol waited in the tree, knowing they would not be back, wondering about Elderweiss's change of heart, and thinking about the upcoming path.

xxx

 _ **Y'Cr'Stea**_

Oanpurcetr landed the skiff and took hold of his rifle, heavily stepping off onto the loamy ground. Nothing in the brush trees was moving and only the wind undulated the grassy knoll. The camsensor that had been triggered was up on the outcrop, facing the rock, a source of great amusement and many jokes among the hunters, until today when it spotted its first prey. Hunting the aliens had been a challenge, more than expected. The first day had yielded almost nothing and the second day was looking to be a repeat until the camsensor bleeped its warning. Nobody could figure out how no sensor had been triggered, not when there were over two scores of aliens and uncrossable waters far on the right and far on the left.

But finally today the odd sensor was triggered and relief followed that they found trace of their prey. Per the rules of the hunt, as being the first witness, to Oanpurcetr belonged the kill.

The unexpected landing of the air-to-ground craft had sent the alien scrambling down the hill. Oanpurcetr could see through the leaves the alien's hair, the color of I'Shlin eyes. The alien thought he was hidden from sight by the brush trees but Oanpurcetr knew these grounds like no other and that right after the first bend there was a spot where the trees parted and any prey could be sighted.

He set up and waited for the kill, heavy boots bracing his stance, rifle cocked and aimed. The alien rounded the bend. Oanpurcetr fired. The alien fell.

xxx

 _ **T'Pol**_

T'Pol gasped and looked upward, bringing a trembling hand to her brow. There was nothing there, no sign of bleeding, only a burning feeling. She took off at a run, scrambling as fast as she could over rocky mounds, skidding on grassy stones that lanced the ulcers on her feet into open wounds. It didn't matter. What only mattered was to reach Trip.

Her flight took her through the rest of the Forest out to the golden meadow. She kept on running, close to the center, mindless of any hunters. She was not even halfway through when the next step propelled her into the white space.

The white space... Long neglected, looking abandoned, like an unkempt dwelling. It was a space she had occupied but when and why and what came of it? She looked around, trying to remember. Suddenly she spotted a body on the ground. Trip! She rushed to him but the fog grew thick and unyielding in the space and in her mind, and then he disappeared.

She found herself back in the meadow, fallen on her knees, breathing ragged. This time the hand that reached her brow was to quell the pain. Trip was close by, of that she was certain. The white space was in too sad a shape to summon him otherwise. She teetered up, using her lances, needing to find him.

Just as she set out her head whipped up to the skies. Those were sounds she had heard before. Faint and far away. Sounds of a time before the Forest and the tribe, when she ran to get away from the hunters and their air-to-ground crafts. The hunters were still around. Was that why she felt Trip, did something happen? She needed to go where the hunters dwelled. She kept on, slowly at first and then faster, using the engine sounds to guide her. There were many miles of land to be conquered before she found the hunters, and hopefully, Trip.

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

Trip laid flat where he had fallen. The shot had grazed his head, the burning pain talking of a very near miss. He had only been dazed for a few minutes, enough for whomever had fired to come his way. He could hear the thrashing of heavy feet approaching, the hunter coming to collect his prey. As he waited in mock-death, he tried with all his might to think of a defensive play, something he could do when he was turned over, some way of hitting before he was struck. His hand closed unseen on the ground, a few blades of grass, some leaves, sandy loam, nothing hard and fast for throwing. Still he grabbed a large chunk and held on to it, an illusory security.

And just like that the white space was all around, the tattered fog hanging low. His heart skipped a beat. "No, no, no..." This was not supposed to be. Not now, now was not the time. He struggled to evade the cottony space, finally back on the ground, fistful of earth held tight, eyes still half-open, waiting for the hunter to strike.

Boots came into his line of sight. He tensed up, waiting for an opening. The boots were not moving. Time stood still. The boots still didn't move.

Suddenly without a sound, a heavy mass fell on him, taking his breath with it. Trip fought back, scared by the unknown, panic giving new life to limbs. A Vulcan voice stopped him. "I'll help you." Panic gave way to surprise. Just as quickly the weight was lifted and he found himself brought to his feet. He looked up in interrogation at the Vulcan. Jivak was his name.

"It seemed the hunter saw only you." Jivak said. They both had fled the approaching craft.

Trip nodded. "We must've missed one." He thought they'd destroyed all the camsensors, guided by the receptive device he'd built from their growing collection of parts. Obviously there was one they hadn't seen. Even more obviously, the aliens' statement that the hunt only took place at predetermined times was a bunch of hogwash. Another lie to add to a long list.

He turned to look at the fallen hunter, finally noticing the yellow eyes fixed on the sky, the ahn-woon wrapped around the throat, the steel weights glowing with alien blood.

"The weights may have been too heavy." Jivak laconically commented.

"You think?!" Trip exclaimed. He brushed the earth off his arms and legs, still trembling inside and loathe to show it.

He would have thanked Jivak except that thanks were illogical, especially in light of the small matter that Jivak was one of those planning to tear him apart one square inch at a time. Vulcan logic, he didn't understand it, and when he tried a migraine was sure to follow. Where was the logic in wanting him dead and then saving his life instead? Was it because Jivak and his cohorts wanted him for themselves? He would have to ask T'Pol if there was a peculiar Vulcan brand of logic unknown on other worlds.

T'Pol... The thought made his heart ache. He could have seen her in the white space. But instead, he had fought it, terrified of his impending death, and now he couldn't go back and undo the deed. He still felt she was near, the white space incidents were too close together.

Jivak interrupted his thoughts. "Do you want to save him to eat?" He asked.

Trip looked at him in shock. "To eat?"

"Humans eat life forms."

Trip shook his head vehemently. "Not life forms that can figure out how to build an air-to-ground skiff!" He took a deep breath, articulating clearly. "We don't eat people. Humans do not eat sentient beings." He was hungry of course, but the I'Shlins had given him a water skin. Three days worth, how long they expected the hunt to last. With rationing, it would last much longer.

Jivak eyed him warily. "You need sustenance."

"I'll be fine." Trip turned away before he got angry. He couldn't believe that Jivak asked. On the other hand, he guessed from their perspective it was a logical assumption. Eat one life form, eat them all. It just proved his point. Vulcan logic. Headache.

He turned back. "We need to bury the body. Or at least hide it." He hoped this didn't break some alien taboo.

"And grab his vessel." Jivak replied. Trip nodded and followed him to the alien's skiff. Perhaps they'd find something there to bury him with.

xxx

 _ **Enterprise**_

The crew sat in silence, watching the yellow orb slowly twirling in space, still very far away. Too far for the sensors to scan the planet.

"Lieutenant Reed, make sure we remain hidden. Ensign Sato, blow up the image." Archer was curt, all business. They had been following the alien craft for weeks now, Travis had calculated they were still three days behind it. That meant Trip and Soval had been there for three days now. He just hoped they were not too late. He shook the thought away, it was not useful.

"How far is the Nahr?" He asked Travis.

"They're a couple of days away, probably less now, they were making good time."

"Thoughts?" Archer turned to Reed as the chief of security came close by.

"Besides we knock on the door, politely ask if they've got a couple dozen Vulcans on hand and could they please give them back?" Reed replied.

Archer scowled. Sarcasm didn't fit the man. And was not what he asked for. "That could actually be more effective than you think." He replied.

He stepped out of his chair and started walking around the well of the bridge, talking to himself as much as his crew. "Facts. Based on what we know, a trader bought the Vulcans and Trip from the Orions and brought them to this planet." Archer looked at Travis who vigorously nodded his assent that the alien ship had not left orbit. "We also believe that the same trader took T'Pol, and we've got to assume they brought her to the same planet." Hoshi turned in her chair. This was more of a wished for outcome than a fact, but she was willing to go along with it. "And that these are the same people or trader who've been picking up Vulcans from Qaybos all these years."

"Do you think they're still there?" Travis was staring at the yellow planet.

"Let's hope so, Ensign, let's hope so." Archer turned back to Reed. "According to Starfleet confidential information," he inclined his head towards Malcolm as recognition this was really Section 31 info, "very slim information, there's something about the aliens and telepathy. They seem to have innate telepathic abilities but dislike or be scared of those..." Archer let his voice trail. It hardly made sense.

"Perhaps they don't like others to have them." Travis's explanation had the advantage of being simple. Simple was good.

"Perhaps. But then why go out of their way to acquire people who have those powers?"

Hoshi swallowed hard, suddenly thinking of medical experimentation and other gruesome possibilities. A quick glance around the bridge let her know nobody else had those thoughts. Good. She held her peace, hoping she was wrong. It would serve no purpose to raise general anxiety.

"They may need them to do some basic societal functions that require telepathy but that they're afraid to do." Malcolm hazarded. Archer nodded. That was in line with the Orion slave trade and as good an explanation as any.

"We need to be ready to buy Trip and Soval and the others back." Archer had no taste for the idea, his experience with the processing center on Verex III had been enough. "Unless they agree to let them go and then perhaps we can find a solution for them that doesn't involve telepaths." He stopped on this high note, which fit in entirely with his benevolent view of the Federation and the future.

"In the meantime, it may be best if we don't show up with a shipload of telepathic Vulcans." Reed remarked.

Archer nodded. "Agreed. Though I'd rather have the Nahr in my back pocket. Travis, get an exact ETA from the Nahr. And don't phrase it that way or they'll point out an estimated time can't be exact."

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

Trip couldn't sleep. It was all fine and well that the Vulcans could switch night lights on and off at will, just decide they'd sleep and actually sleep, but humans were not built the same way. He didn't know anyone who'd be able to sleep after what happened and what was yet to happen. Other than T'Pol.

He groaned. He often forgot she was a Vulcan. Thinking about her made him feel guilty all over again. He had fought against the white space, even though he knew she was there. He didn't have a choice, with a hunter closing on him but he wished he could go back, find the white space again and let her know he was okay, find out about her. Another frustrated desire.

He tossed and turned, trying to find elusive sleep, thankful this time he wasn't buried in sand. The narrow gully was so well hidden they could all sleep in the open. His thoughts went back to the days' events. Figuring out the alien craft had been child's play, Travis and the Xindi shuttle had taught him well. Jivak and him had finished their scouting run in style, astride the skid, surveying their domain. It was Jivak, by trade a botanist, who noticed the break in the trees, the narrow gully nestled at the base of tall hills, so well covered they'd had a hard time finding it after they landed. There was no camsensor in the gully, only a handful at a distance. Obviously the aliens too had missed the place.

Trip would have liked to see Soval's face when they flew back to the rendez-vous point but the Vulcans had hidden as soon as they heard the vessel. By the time they faced their commander-in-chief, the Vulcan's face was again as still as marble and Trip would never know if perhaps he was surprised or even impressed.

The few hours before the evening hunt were spent flying everyone to the gully then elaborating a plan of attack, while the hunters returned empty-handed to their compound. Trip mentally shook his head. The Vulcans were supposed to be the prey but now they were the ones with an attack plan. More Vulcan logic. More headache.

His thoughts went to the next day and the decision looming ahead. Even though it wasn't his to make, he couldn't help worrying about Soval's choice. Perhaps he should volunteer and give everyone a break. Except they wouldn't hear it, he knew that in advance. The skiff evened out differences between Vulcans and Humans and there were a few points on which he had the advantage, such as night vision and fairy tales, but there were basic and biological facts of body strength and hearing range that made a Vulcan better-suited for the task at hand.

A shadow moved across his field of vision and Trip realized there were others who couldn't sleep, Vulcan and all. He knew that Vulcans' poor night vision protected him from being seen and just watched the form as it bent to pick up a large stone, recognizing with a shock it was T'Agad. She was one of the good ones. He kept a mental tally of where laid everyone's loyalty. The rebels as a group had taken to Soval's commanding presence but Trip kept waiting for one of them to go the other way, prove that old grudges and feelings hadn't died, that they still preferred the Romulan way.

The stone was large, visibly straining T'Agad. She walked slowly and Trip kept a watch, unsure as to what she intended.

She walked to where Soval was sitting. The older man wouldn't be sleeping tonight. He had bid everyone else to rest while he kept the guard and reflected on which of the people under his command and care he would send out to be killed. It had been universally decided that he couldn't self-select. Soval didn't look up but his voice carried over to Trip.

"If you plan to kill me, now is a good time."

Trip got up on one elbow, unsure what was going on, ready to pounce.

Xxx

 _ **T'Agad Story**_

" _If you plan to kill me, now is a good time_." Soval's back was to T'Agad, and to all appearances he hadn't heard her approach, didn't know she was near. T'Agad instead laid the stone next to him and sat on it, staring.

"I want to be chosen for the morning assault."

Soval looked at her long and hard, then looked away. "You are one of them." He said. He might as well have been talking about the weather.

"You knew!" T'Agad spoke softly, almost too low to hear.

"Knew what?" Sovals tone was harsh. "That you betrayed your colleagues, were the cause of their death?" He was staring at her. "After the Romulans... I had to touch your mind." He looked away in embarrassment at the unauthorized contact.

Trip's eyes went wide as saucers, his jaw opened. T'Agad? She was with the rebels? He didn't know what was making him angrier. That T'Agad had betrayed Soval or that the two of them were talking in the tones reserved for afternoon tea parties at an English manor. Where was the hurt, where was the anger, where was the blind fury? Soval should be expressing his contempt for T'Agad, verbally lashing out at her, stomping her with his outrage. Instead of this… this… it was driving him nuts. Vulcans drove him nuts.

There were a few moments of silence before T'Agad spoke again. "So you agree logically I am the one who should die."

"I agree to no such thing." Soval fairly hissed at her. "You are young, you have a future."

"What kind of a future? Knowing I was misled, I was led astray? In your world, I would bow and wisely step down. How can I live when everything I believed, everything I strove for, never even existed."

"Surak says that wrongful choices are a predisposition of all Vulcans, that the only wrongful choice is in their permanence."

"Surak! I was raised to loathe his name and everything he stands for. I grew up with stories of ancient battles as nursery rhymes. I believed an evil dwarf sat on Vulcan's throne. You would have me renege everything I was ever told, burn what I held sacred? I cannot. Nor can I hold on to empty tales. I have no past and no future."

"You have a future. To follow your own choices apart from what you were told."

"And end up with the Federation?" T'Agad scoffed.

"You have other options."

"You don't understand." T'Agad's voice was low, raw. "I wanted you dead. All those years, I was working towards your demise. The plan was that I would be the one to inflict the final cut before you died." She looked around. "Instead, you took care of me and helped all of us. You may be able to look at me but I can never look at you again. Others might walk away from where they stood towards a new future but I am pulled apart between useless beliefs and the reality of what could be. It is better that I die, that I escape this illogical struggle."

"You are still ailing. You cannot decide."

"I will always be ailing. If you want to help, allow me to die."

Soval's voice grew hard. "If you die, you escape the consequences of your actions. Many have died from your doings, possibly their consorts. All of you share in the guilt, share in the shame. Why should you avoid your reckoning while your friends here face theirs?"

"The ones with you are soft in their beliefs. My true comrades are blades of finely forged steel. Yonakai, Mashana, the others not with us. Those were my companions. They are dead now. Or soon will be so."

"And why didn't you go with them?"

Trip was glad Soval asked. He had the same question.

T'Agad was looking at her hands. "Having forsaken what I held to be true, I thought logic would lead me to accept what you hold to be truth." She looked up at Soval again. "I find that I cannot. I do not have faith in what you trust, and I can no longer abide my former beliefs. I have no future and no past."

Silence settled over the two of them. Soval nodded. "I will render my decision in the morning."

Understanding she was dismissed, T'Agad got up to her feet and went back to her sleeping area, stepping by Trip but not seeing he was awake. He stared at her back long after she had disappeared into the night.


	18. The Forest 18 - The Hunt - The Sacrifice

xxx

 **THIRD DAY - DAWN**

 ** _The Hunters_**

Dawn found the hunters frustrated and eager to get aloft. Oanpurcentr had not come back with the bounty as planned and was still hunting in the scrub. There was grumbling that perhaps he would skew the rules and overkill.

Makrtradr was doing his best to smooth ruffled feathers, telling the others Oanpurcentr had a hunter's sense of pride, and fairness, and honor, that he wouldn't take more than his fair share, that it often happened that the game once wounded disappeared in the shrub leaving a dismayed hunter to crawl in the undergrowth until he grabbed his quarry, that Oanpurcentr must have chased his prey so, decided to set camp for the night and try again come the morrow. The hunters all were wealthy and familiar to each other, few believed what he said, Oanpurcentr had an established reputation for dubious deeds and undeserved luck.

If Makrtradr was correct and Oanpurcentr held his rifle for other than his assigned kill, there would be nineteen aliens left for the hunters. Another two of the hunting party had early departed, drunk with pride for their kill the day before, to Makrtradr the task of finding the bodies and sending the hunting trophy, another picture-plaque to mount on their well-adorned walls. Twenty-one hunters remained. Two or three would leave without a kill.

Makrtradr already had a plan. The few that left empty-handed would be first on the list for his next trading trip. He was already sitting on a hefty profit and keeping his customers happy would be to his increased benefit. He would find the ship that had sold him the prey and ask for more, and if he could without awakening suspicion, see if he could discover the source. He could imagine his private hunt becoming an event exclusive and sought-after, known all over Y'Cr'Stea as the Makrtradr Prize Hunt.

He needed a catchier name, something that would sing with promises of a kill. He set the thought aside, focusing on the hunting party, bowing and kowtowing and altogether fawning to the higher ups while he smiled in his mind, counting his money.

xxx

 ** _T'Agad Story_**

T'Agad savored the feel of the wind, the wide open space, she felt like the _qaavoc_ whose name she had secretly taken. Once broken, aloft again, her wings reset but not cut off. This was as it should be.

She greeted the rising dawn. The hunters would be arriving soon, gutless cowards astride gleaming machines, chasing defenseless prey. They were twenty-six at the beginning. If her comrades had been successful, twenty-six there would still be. Hope that they had been was illogical. Either there were twenty-six hunters or there were not. How many could she should try and bring to an inglorious end?

While pondering the solution to what should be a simple equation, she traced with her skiff the infinity sign in the sky, again and again, reaching for the end points that would provide maximal vantage. Her circles kept expanding and lengthening, bringing her closer to wherefrom the hunters would be coming. Closer but still safe, she stayed short of the farthest point that would threaten Soval's plans.

As she rounded a further curve in the sky, a spot of color caught her eye. The I'Shlin planet was all pinks and yellows, the pink of the sky echoed in the flora, there were no blues and reds to be found. Except for what was down on the ground below, a dark reddish color, possibly a flower. It deserved appropriate analysis and determination.

She maneuvered the skiff, eyes on the reddish spot, until she was close enough that she could hazard a thought. It didn't look like a flower or any type of animal or vegetal. It was a red mass and it was inert. She lowered the skiff further and the red spot became long grass sideway on the ground. T'Agad's mind started elaborating theories and possibilities, hypotheses that would need to be verified, mental constructs about inorganic matter. Those were swept away in a microsecond as she recognized the mass for what it was.

Mashana's hair.

His body was hidden by the brush trees all around. T'agad briefly closed her eyes then turned the skiff and went back to the infinity sign. She was the predator and the hunters were the prey. She would take one I'Shlin for every rebel they killed.

Xxx

 ** _T'Pol_**

T'Pol took a whooping breath, already fatigued. Her morning cough had not improved. She had hoped that getting out of the Forest would reverse some of the effects of the humid atmosphere. Such hope was illogical, the fact she had hoped a mark of the damage done by the I'Ph'Lis. She also was not able to meditate, her sparse attempts had resulted in frustration as she couldn't reach detachment. If she couldn't meditate she couldn't access the white space. If she couldn't access the white space, she couldn't locate Trip. It was fortunate that the I'Ph'Lis also erased irritation, kept the ever-present anger centers from stimulation and expression. But that wouldn't last much longer.

Her hand shook as she grabbed one of the lances. She ruefully reflected she knew that shaking well and what came of it and with it. I'Ph'Lis, like trillium, ensnared its followers in a web of dependence. There would be shaking and cold sweats and nightmares, visions she would learn to regret. But as with trillium, every hour that went by she was creeping towards lucid thought, towards her mind being back.

She got up and almost fell, bringing a soothing hand to her head. Some memories were slowly coming back, not so much memories but accretion of shadows that acquired substance, some things that were familiar, some perhaps she remembered. Did she attack Trip in the shower? It felt real but held the taste of dreams. The psionic suppression had been unsubtle, crushing the good with the bad under its thoughtless heel, the bond with the anger. The bond. She'd had a bond with Trip. That she remembered. The bond was not there, either suppressed or paralyzed. Here and there twinges of radiating pain let her know of its slow re-emergence, that its rebirth would be as painful as its containment was.

The sound of a light craft rang in the still dawn. T'Pol looked from her hiding place until she found the rider . A lone hunter, far from the campground, doing circles in the sky. Waiting. For what? No quarry would volunteer to come out and meet its fate. Suddenly the aircraft zoomed to a place not far from where she hid, as the crow flies. The aircraft swooped by a couple more times then went back to circling the sky.

T'Pol kept watching it. Her logical if tenuous belief was that Trip's psionic calls were triggered by something adverse. The only hostiles around were the hunters. If she found the hunters she would find Trip. She focused on that thought as she slowly got to her feet, the dew rolling in rosy drops off the l'mo'raes' pelts. She took a step and winced as one of the freshly sliced ulcers reopened. She pushed the pain away, grabbed her lance and carefully made her way forward under cover of the brush trees. The hunter would eventually lead her to their site and to Trip. However illogical such hope was.

xxx

 **THIRD DAY - MORNING**

 ** _Enterprise_**

Archer carefully positioned himself in his chair in a stance that conveyed authority without hostility. He hoped. He nodded at Hoshi. "Open the link."

The screen pixelated into a semi-circle of twelve or so aliens, their dusky skin mottled with yellow, the same yellow as their eyes, a wiry scruff of mane on their jowls and necks, draped in loose clothing. They were standing in a large room, inside an oblong circle of vaulted columns that reminded Archer of a... rib cage? The aliens did have morphologic traits similar to large earth cats. A predatory species, that went without saying.

The sides of the screen showed two vessels rapidly converging on them. Travis turned in his chair but Archer signaled with a discrete wave of the hand to hold steady. A predatory species would react strongly to any perceived threat. He threw a side glance at Reed, busy entering codes, trying to figure the vectors that would most quickly subtract the ship from alien fire. The Nahr had taken Enterprise's place in the shadows of the nearest asteroid, ready to pounce in help. Archer was glad he had waited for them.

"I am Captain Archer of the Enterprise. We are Humans. We come in peace." Archer knew the aliens were used to other species. He kept telling himself this was the friendly introduction of two species yet unknown to each other. They had found the I'Shlin language in the Federation database, rudimentary but easily loaded into the universal translator for Hoshi to work her magic.

One of the aliens stepped forward. "I am Turmlydr and this is the council of my peers." The alien turned his head upward asking. "Do they have sighting?" Archer threw a glance at Travis who shrugged turning his palms up. Whoever the alien had summoned couldn't be seen on the screen.

A voice soon boomed back. "No, they are safe, they do not have the abomination."

The abomination? It sounded like not having the abomination must be a good thing and Archer pressed his advantage. "What is the abomination?"

Turmlydr looked back at him. "We do not abide any unspoken communication, the ability to speak without talking. This is repugnant to us."

Archer nodded, it fit with the information that the aliens were afraid of psionic abilities. "There are many ways to speak without talking. Sign language, for example. Are you talking about mind-reading, the ability to know another's thoughts?" He prodded.

"That is an abomination!" Turmlydr shuddered in repressed disgust, as did most of the council. It was good the Nahr had remained hidden. It was also good it was a shipload of Vulcans. They shared the transmission first-hand and Archer didn't have to worry about their reaction.

"Humans do not have any psionic abilities. That is how we call that ability."

"We call it Sighting," replied Turmlydr.

Archer smiled inwardly. At least, they had achieved some connection. Now he needed to proceed with prudence. "There are many species in the Federation that have Sighting."

Turmlydr nodded vigorously. "We know. We try to cull them whenever we encounter them."

The tone was matter-of-fact, the way one would talk of doing away with roaches in a shared kitchen. A deathly silence welcomed his statement. Archer finally realized he had left Turmlydr hanging, smiled his most ingratiating smile. "You try to cull them...?"

"We try to, like we would do with our own. But we did not set to cull them all." Turmlydr became defensively apologetic as if found wanting and not thorough enough.

Archer's teeth were hurting from how tight his jaw was clenched. Still, he managed to force a smile. "I apologize, I'm not aware of the ways of your people. You said 'Like you do with your own'?"

The alien nodded. "Yes, some of us are afflicted with the abomination. Every year we cull as many as we can find, but the numbers never waver."

Hoshi and Travis were watching the screen in horrified silence. Reed's mouth was pencil-thin, his attention fully on the weapons control, wishing he could also control the sound. Archer had walked back to his chair, fist nervously clenching and unclenching in front of him before he brought his hand back to his side and pivoted around to face the screen. "And when you say 'cull', you mean..." He really didn't want to hear it, but there was always the outside chance the word had a different meaning.

Turmlydr blinked his yellow eyes a couple of times, obviously wondering why the Human would have an issue with such a clear concept. "Cull... you know, cull." He had a burst of inspiration. "Ah yes, every year we have a ritual where we hunt the ones with Sighting that we collected through the year. It is the annual highlight of our civilization."

Archer had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Even without Sighting, he could sense the feelings of Hoshi and Travis, Reed and the Enterprise crew, and the glacial disapproval of the Nahr crew. He just needed to know. "What do you do with the ones you find?"

Turmlydr passed a tongue around its mouth. "Well, we kill them of course..." His council and he sat in bewilderment watching these aliens who didn't know how to hunt.

xxx

 ** _T'Agad Story_**

T'Agad sent the skiff into a stiff acceleration, making it look like she was anxiously trying to escape the hunters behind her. They reacted as planned, their excitement at the upcoming kill drowning out all logical thinking, any hint of caution. They accelerated behind her, five small-sized crafts with single drivers, some larger ones falling further behind, hampered by tonnage. T'Agad slowed down exactly one half of a percent too much coming out of the curve, giving the tantalizing impression she was losing speed. She briefly looked behind her to check that they were all following. She accelerated again and her followers responded even faster. The first one was on her tail, close enough she could see the yellow of his eyes. He had no idea that even if he were to catch up, at their current speed, the distance traveled would be far longer than what was available.

She gave a wiggle to the craft, like an unsure driver, anchoring the killing drive, turning it into a blood-letting frenzy. None of her pursuers would pay attention to anything other than her vessel. They were now flying just above the brush trees. Just above, fast approaching the gully that started as a trench in the earth before it rose into cliffs on each side. She went straight in and her pursuers followed right behind, unaware of the cliff, too bent on their prey to notice the way. The skiffs flew fast between the narrow walls, almost single file, and she reduced her speed a quarter of one percent. The first hunter now trailed thirty yards behind, then twenty-five, twenty. She stayed close to the top of the brush trees, zigzagging across softer jutting growth, the hunters right behind. She knew what came ahead. A wall of branches and leaves.

The dozens suns were shining their pink glow. She thought back to her oath-sharing brothers and sisters of the _ha'gelan qaavoc_ , their meetings and their conversations, to her despised colleagues of the embassy world, their meetings and their conversations, and she realized in a burst of lightning comprehension that they were all the same, only separated through appearances. They were one. All of them. The despised and the revered. A life force in its many forms. Surak had been right. Life was to be protected. She owed to live.

It was too late. They were already at the wall. T'Agad pivoted, heard the jarring crash that shook her bones and then like rapid-fire, the five explosions of the crafts on her tail. And then darkness.

Xxx

 ** _The Hunted_**

Soval watched the skiffs hit the cliff at the end of the gully, first T'agad's in the center, and then five larger explosions like petals to a flower. The first part of the plan was over.

He turned to look at the heavier crafts further back. They had slowed to a crawl, shocked I'Shlin eyes watching the scene unfold, before they picked up speed and streaked to the base of the cliff. The three crafts set down, their drivers stepping off in pairs, walking in foreboding silence, staring disconsolately at the remains of their hunting brothers. The hunt was no longer on their minds. They hardly noticed the strange whistling sound coming against the wind before another three were vainly clawing at their throats, falling in a dead swoon into the strangulating arms of the ahn-woons. The last three made for their transports at a run, aware their time was running short, skidding to a halt as they reached the landing site and saw the aliens calmly waiting on their vehicles. They would have turned back in a desperate attempt but the Vulcans had the decency to put an early end to the pickle.

Soval walked to the rebels gathered around the crafts and the bodies, like a general to his army. "Tie them up." He ordered and they did so rapidly. Hostages could be a valid coin of exchange.

Once they had realized the gully turned into a perfect trap, it hadn't taken long for twenty and more pairs of Vulcan arms to uproot and move a few brush trees or at least their taller branches, and camouflage the mountain wall. T'Agad had been the bait, the one whose needs were exceeded by the many. It was only logical. "Go recover T'Agad's body." He instructed the group. Poryk, Jivak and a couple of others went for the base of the cliff.

Five in the air and three on the ground. Soval heard the whining sound of another engine, turned to see a laggard hunter stop and hover in stupefied horror, before he turned his machine around and made with all due haste back to the compound. This was unexpected but it could serve his plans. The game was afoot. The hunters would learn their prey had hunted them down. They would not rush back any time soon, to do so would be a surefire end. They both were armies now facing each other, one with weapons and one almost without. Almost. He'd faced worse odds in diplomatic halls. He had brought what he learned on the field to his career in diplomacy and would now bring what he learned in the embassy to the battlefield. Soval turned to Trip. "How many weapons?"

"Another three air-to-ground crafts and seven rifles, makes eight. Also –" Trip stopped, passed a hand over his brow and the sweat that had collected there in minuscule drops. He looked at his hand as if it were a foreign object, brought it back to his head, the back of it, closing his eyes as if deep in thought.

"Also?" Soval was eyeing him with interest.

Trip shook himself, shook his head again. The sensation had been fleeting, a few seconds, a brief burst of heated pain. He looked at Soval with hesitation, then took a deep breath, finally realizing what it was he had felt. It was the bond. A fleeting sensation, a couple of seconds, but the bond had just come back and then left again. It could only mean one thing. T'Pol was alive. And she was coming to him.

He couldn't share that with anyone, least of all Soval, who knew what he thought of alien-to-Vulcan relations. Trip quickly thought back to the conversation they were having before he was distracted by the promise of the bond. "Also we have the ammunition, not much, but enough for a few rounds." Obviously the hunters had counted on being quickly successful. He looked around, wondering if perhaps he could see T'Pol. An illogical hope, quickly suppressed.

Soval didn't say anything, silently staring at the engineer until the Human turned a decided shade of reddish pink. He was always amazed at how many shades of pink there were in Humans. He abstractedly wondered if there were as many shades of green in Vulcans. He wasn't sure why the engineer hadn't mentioned the bond, however fleeting. Was he unaware of it? Or did he somehow object to being bonded to a Vulcan? Humans were psionically null, they may not like having their minds and thoughts linked to another. Perhaps T'Pol was unaware her bondmate didn't welcome being joined.

He made a note to bring it up to her when they were reunited. The odds of seeing his mentee again had markedly increased.


	19. The Forest 19 - Before the Battle

xxx

 **THIRD DAY - AFTERNOON**

 ** _Enterprise_**

Archer needed to strike and strike hard. Now that they knew of I'Shlins and psionic abilities there was no time for gentle persuasion. "There are many worlds were Sighting is accepted, where everyone has Sighting. When you take aliens to be culled, you are committing murder."

Twelve scruffs went up. A murmur rose from the council, a couple of members ready to spring forward, their combative instincts aroused. Turmlydr blinked his yellow eyes. "We are not murderers. It is important to cull those with Sighting."

"Why? And why 'cull' them, as you say? Aren't there other options?"

"Those who have it would try and control others, give them False Thought, make them do what they wouldn't. They have caused the death of millions in the past and still may in the future. Only culling protects us." The council members raised their scruff in sympathetic understanding.

"Have you tried other options?" Archer insisted.

Turmlydr looked coldly at him. "There are no other options. You say people on other worlds freely use Sighting but our traders tell us that other worlds have the same hatred we have, that they want to cull those with Sighting."

"Your traders lie." Archer curtly replied.

"Why should we trust your word?"

"I could show you entire civilizations, some with starships more advanced than ours, who live with Sighting and find it repugnant to infringe on the thoughts of another." Archer glanced at Phlox, whom he had summoned to the bridge. "One of my officers was from such a civilization. She disappeared on Qaybos a few months ago, we believe taken by one of your traders. There are others like her who disappeared. We followed one of your traders here. His hold was full of aliens with Sighting. We demand they be returned."

There was a flurry of murmurs among the council. Finally Turmlydr turned to Archer. "One with Sighting worked for you? She had to impart False Thought."

"If she did, now that she is gone how much False Thought could she impose? If she did, then why am I here looking for her?" Archer discreetly looked at Hoshi, and she shook her head unobtrusively. He sighed inwardly. If they could only luck out and find Trip or the Vulcans on their sensors they'd grab them and leave this god-forsaken world. Up to the Nahr whether they wanted to stay behind and impart a lesson of their own.

"Their Sighting is welcome among us, not something to be feared. We want those people back." Archer repeated. He signaled Hoshi who had been streaming the pictures of the Vulcans. "One of those taken was a Human. He doesn't have Sighting." Her next transmission showed Trip.

"He shares Sighting with another." The unseen voice boomed again.

Archer felt himself get angry. He'd had the feeling the I'Shlins knew more than they let on. Now he was sure. He turned to the screen, eyes narrowed. "So you do know where he is. If you have him, you also have the others. They are not I'Shlins and not subject to your laws. Now that you know, killing any of them would make you murderers."

On the screen the aliens were debating, by all appearances a heated debate. Finally Turmlydr turned to him. "We will give our answer in the morning."

"While you cull them during the night?"

Turmlydr bristled. "We will send word that they are not to be hunted."

xxx

 _ **T'Agad Story**_

They had gathered the weapons, were waiting for Soval to give the word. The older man seemed deep in thought. Trip knew he was calculating the risks and odds of various plans, the rebels as a group had gone over the options, Soval alone would make the selection. All of a sudden Soval was at his elbow, half-scaring him, he hadn't expected the motion. "How proficient are you at target-shooting? My skills are over sixty years ancient."

"I can hold my own." Trip would have said the same even if he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. There may be better aimsmen among the other men, but he wasn't about to have all their weapons in the hands of the rebels. Then realizing the expression may go over Soval's head. "I am adequate."

"That is good." Soval nodded. Then turning to the others. "We are not hiding here tonight. The hunters will come straight for us when the sun rises. Who among you are the riders?" A few of the Vulcans came closer to Soval, every rebel had been assigned a station in light of their skills, only the healer was left without a designation.

A commotion from far afield caused the men to shift their gaze before Soval could proceed. Poryk, Jivak and the others were carrying T'Agad's, holding her with great care. They gently laid her on the ground.

"She is alive," Poryk said, earning a sharp gaze from Trip and Soval. The healer examined her and nodded. "She needs care." T'Agad was struggling to get up. The healer looked at her then when he saw she was determined, he and Poryk helped her get upright. T'Agad was bleeding from several wounds, charred on one side, staggering.

Soval walked to her and the rebels silently gave way, aware that he knew, had known all along. He looked at her. "What happened?"

She wouldn't look at him. "In the last second I realized the supremacy of life. I flipped the skiff so that it would hit underside. I was thrown off and awoke mostly unscathed."

Soval nodded. "It pleases me that you survived."

Nobody moved. T'Agad unsteadily raised her eyes at Soval, then took a step back into a deep bow. Trip could see in flying eyebrows the collective shock at her action and another more profound message that he couldn't fathom.

Soval was still looking at her. "Are you standing in your name only or in the name of others?"

T'Agad lurched but no helping hands were extended. "I think and talk for myself only." She replied. "Any of my companions may follow." T'Agad folded more than she sat, and she laid back on the ground, helped by the healer and Poryk.

Soval turned to the group of rebels. "Where does thee stand?"

Jivak stepped forward. "Because of common danger our differences have been laid aside but they remain. T'Agad may see a new path but duress shall not be my advisor."

"Very well." Soval looked at the group. "Do you all think this way?" There were various nods all around. Soval nodded with seeming indifference. "We need to prepare for the morrow." He looked at the ground than at T'Agad. "We will split forces tonight in three sections. Jivak will lead one, Commander Tucker another. I will remain in the gully with T'Agad and the hostages. Listen all closely, the hunters will rise tomorrow, we cannot afford any hesitation."

Trip knew this was not the plan Soval'd had in mind, he'd changed it because of T'Agad. He was angry Soval would risk lesser odds for that Jezebel. Talk about the benefit of the many versus the one.

Once Soval was done explaining the next phase, he walked over to the Vulcan. "She would have killed you." The reproach was clear.

Soval looked at him as if finding the confirmation to his suppositions. "Youth is often mistaken. Its need to rebel knows no bounds." He drew himself straighter, still favoring the injured shoulder. "She reminds me of another aide of mine, a brilliant young woman." Trip scoffed but didn't reply. If Soval thought that would soften him up, he had another thing coming. There was silence, then Soval went on. "She rebelled by choosing a Human."

Soval watched with fascination aniridescent glow wash over the engineer's features as the full meaning of what he said slowly sunk in. Humans exhibited a most diverse palette of pinks indeed.

xxx

 **THIRD DAY - EVENING**

 ** _Makrtradr_**

Makrtradr was sitting forlornly in a corner. It was all coming crashing down around him, his dreams of riches and glory. Nine hunters dead already. And not just any hunters. Among the richest and wealthiest of Y'Cr'Stea, in search of extreme enjoyment with a field of their peers. They would hold him responsible for what happened, strip from him title and money, and if he were lucky leave him with his life still intact. And now he had received a message from the Seers not to hunt the aliens, they were property of the Council through eminent domain.

He didn't understand. It wasn't planned to be. He hadn't meant for the disaster to happen. It was supposed to be a regular hunt, twenty-five preys, twenty-five hunters, one prey for each hunter or a couple left empty-handed to make everyone else feel like they succeeded. Now it had become a regular battle, the hunters huddled around the low table strategizing angles of attack against a wily enemy, no longer unarmed.

He could have pointed out, at great personal risk, that they were still being entertained, but this seemed to be a time when discretion was the better part of valor. If he gave up the aliens now, he could very well end up serving as prey for revenge-seeking hunters. Nobody else had noticed he received an official transmission. There was no choice, he would ignore the summons and take part in the morning foray.

xxx

 _ **T'Pol**_

She had been halfway to the location of the hunter's craft when she had heard the explosions. Before then she had seen the lone hunter being joined by others, all of them streaking full-speed far to her right towards the unwelcoming hills as if their prey were not going to the Forest. That was not as expected. She had assumed a detour along the way until the explosions resounded. Another lone hunter had gone by the other way, singly-focused on his destination as if on a life errand.

She had looked up at the flume of smoke rising into the sky. It was another day's walk, if the going was kind. The hunters were after Trip and she needed to defend him. She had been considering her options, whether to trek to the hills after the explosions or to turn the other way and follow the lone hunter, when a searing pain had brought her to a knee, blinding her to anything around. It had lasted a heartbeat, possibly two, the vibration reverberating down every nerve ending. When she could at last breathe again, she had realized it was the bond, disappeared as suddenly as it had come. Trip was near, she knew it. The hills also were near. That was the path she followed.

Now the suns were setting, night would soon follow. She looked ahead. The hills were closer but the smoke flume was gone. She remembered the coordinates. If she kept walking throughout the night, morning would find her closer to Trip. She leaned on her lance, lungs aflame, it was only another day or so then she could rest. Once she found Trip everything would be better.

xxx

 _ **Archer**_

Archer was deep in thought, staring out a porthole in the mess hall. The planet was slowly going by, Enterprise off geostationary orbit, a long shot at scanning for the Vulcans and Trip. He'd decided to mingle with the crew, cup of coffee in hand, unwilling to face what really drove him down below.

Once the tension and stress and surprise of learning about I'Shlins and the Sighting had gone, other elements had come up, unnoticed at the time, or noticed but not considered. One in particular wouldn't let up, gnawing at his mind like a dog to the bone. It was about Trip. 'He shares Sighting with another' the overseer or oracle, he wasn't sure which, of the I'Shlins had said. What did he mean exactly. Trip had no Sighting, no one on the ship had any, who was he sharing Sighting with?

He'd asked Reed and all he'd earned for his efforts was stiff English reserve and some muttered gobblydygook about it not being British but he wasn't sure. He'd turned to Hoshi but somehow she'd just left her station. Travis had looked at him with those huge eyes of youth. Archer almost asked him but then reflected he was too young and too green and what would he know. That had left Phlox but the Denobulan doctor was in medical geekland, all about the mystery of the Sighting and its regular resurgence among the I'Shlins and he would hardly give him the beginning of an answer. He couldn't reach out to the Nahr and ask, no matter how tempted, for fear the I'Shlins would discover the transmission.

There was nothing for him to do but wait on pins and needles for the I'Shlins to deliver. So there he was, in the mess hall, confusedly sensing there was something his crew was aware of that he wasn't, vaguely thinking that perhaps if he sat with them the meaning would permeate to him and he could finally understand what the oracle meant when he said Trip shared Sighting with another.

xxx

 _ **T'Agad's Story**_

Soval sat cross-legged next to T'Agad, a rifle across his lap. Splitting the group into threes had not been ideal, a considered risk. The good of the many was imperative in times of peace but in times of war the good of the one prevailed and nobody on his team was left behind. T'Agad was coming in and out of sleep, her earlier standing a feat of will in perspective, something was driving her. Like all Vulcans, Soval was curious, and being an ambassador meant it was a long time since he'd been frustrated in having his questions answered. He sensed she hadn't told all because of the audience, there was something more in her silence.

"What happened?" He asked again, when he could see she was fully conscious and able to answer. She knew what he meant. A Vulcan did not repeat himself unless an unsatisfactory answer had been provided.

T'Agad didn't answer and he couldn't see her face. He heard the rustle of turning, her head possibly. "When I was at the mountain wall..." She was talking softly, hesitantly, as if finding it difficult to frame what she thought. She seemed to finally decide to commit, like a parched woman goes to water. "It does not make sense and I cannot explain. It felt... It was as if Surak was there. I can only explain this as a deluded figment of a shocked brain, but it felt as if it were his hand extended that brought me down to safety."

Soval didn't answer. "Perhaps there is another explanation." He offered. It was strange that T'Agad of all persons would be the one to see Surak. As strange as letting a Human carry his katra. Surak's reputation had not been one of levity but did anyone know who he was really.

Soval reflected that he had seen plenty of worlds where reality did not matter, where the life of the mind was the favored answer. Perhaps T'Agad, if she persisted down that path, would find a suitable existence on one such world. "There are always options." He said, in response to a question she hadn't yet asked.

"I do not need options." T'Agad answered. "I will follow Surak's path. I shall become an acolyte at Mount Seleya."

The older man's eyebrow soared in surprise. He hesitated. "Why an acolyte? Why not a priestess?"

"A priestess needs to discern right in wrong, see the light in the shade and the shadows under the sun. I no longer can pretend to do so. My soul is tainted. A priestess stands above others, I want to serve those who do not dare lift their eyes to her."

"And what about Poryk?"

T'Agad widening eyes told Soval that again she hadn't known he knew. "Whether to follow me shall his choice be."

As Soval started to nod in harmony, the thought suddenly struck him that she could be the one servicing his next pon farr. He averted his gaze, feeling heat on his ears. He was grateful for the night and the absence of the engineer. There was unwelcome poetry to the symmetry of their coloring.

Illogical as it was, he hoped he might find a consort before his next Time.


	20. The Forest 20 - The Battle

xxx

 **FOURTH DAY - MORNING**

 ** _The Hunters_**

They came in v-formation, five of them in a line, each rider mounted on a massive skiff, crewmen on each side, bombs and heavy guns aplenty. Myfiudun was leading the charge. Makrtradr was third in line, not by choice but by guilt, he couldn't afford to seem less than outraged. Hunting was not his forte he would much rather have been in space chasing rare finds then out early in the morning chasing dangerous prey. To others the thrill of the lead.

The hunting group was well prepared, heavy weapons and airborne canons. The aliens didn't stand a chance, holed up in that canyon, they would be obliterated before the day got underway. The flyers flew low, coming straight at the gully, the extra personnel tasked with surveying the ranging hills.

The noise of the engines hummed over the land, drowning the sounds of the nature below. In the wake of the slow-dying rumbling, silence settled once again over the hills. Somewhere, a shape was sleeping. Others were intensely waiting. Minutes ticked by. Nothing moved. The brush trees were immobile, their branches saluting the sky. The shape slept on. Then from very far away, another slow rumbling, that grew and grew until it reached a crescendo. From the far corner of the sky another line of heavy crafts, seven this time, also in v-formation, the reserve line for the bombing.

The first line had the gully within their sight. They slowed as they approached, taking note of the jutting cliffs on each side and far in the back the charred hill, now no longer hidden from sight, with its flower of burnt marks. At its base, twisted metal was glinting among the trees. The hunters' plan was straightforward, bomb everything in sight, the second line would finish whatever was left behind. But the crewmen were giving no sign of finding their marks and the flyers lowered their speed to take another pass.

Suddenly yells resounded aboard the skiffs. Lined up in a clearing, six hunters were laid on the ground, three immobile in death and three with the glow of running blood. And then more yells, two of the aliens, distinguishable among the branches, too close to the lain hunters and too well hidden.

The hunters' blood sang with the closeness of the quarry, the hunters' minds reeled with the insult of the display. Goaded beyond their sound minds, the only imperative to save face, squash the aliens and punish the insolence, they made a wide circle over the gully and came back to land at its entrance. The attack would be on foot.

As the five swept towards the ground, the reserve line came into view. Both waves would attack together. Another cry rose in the distance, A lone alien had been spotted. Two flyers from the pack separated. Soon the alien was overtaken. The hunters signaled each other, one of them lifted his rifle, aimed, the alien had stopped, was looking at death in the sky, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

xxx

 ** _Enterprise_**

Archer looked at Phlox. "I've asked our doctor to talk to the Council. He isn't Human and also has no Sighting. I thought you may want to hear his findings." Turmlyder nodded his assent.

The doctor jumped right in. "Have you considered that when some I'Shlins have Sighting, perhaps this is simply a normal variation?"

A council member nearly hissed. "There is nothing normal about Sighting, it is an abomination. Those who have it must disappear."

That played right in Phlox's hands. "Hmmm. That may prove to be difficult. You see," he looked around at the room, "Sighting is a genetic variant of the I'Shlin genome, which sometimes finds its expression during early adulthood. The trigger is unknown. That is why the numbers never waver, no matter how many you..." Phlox looked around for a softer word but there was really none "... dispose of." He cleared his throat. "All of you could end up with Sighting."

The council members shrunk in horror. Turmlydr was shaking his scruff. "That cannot be. Sighing only afflicts the undesirable."

Phlox bounced on the balls of his feet. "And they are undesirable because they have Sighting? That is what's called circular thinking." Phlox paused. "Based on the records you provided, the genetic variation afflicts ten percent of the population. Every year. All of them...All of you."

Turmlydr eyes blinked once, twice, three times. "That cannot be." He looked around at his council, then came back to the screen. "It is an abomination."

Archer waited a few seconds to speak, making sure his voice was under control. He turned to the council members, appealing to their senses. "If Sighting is a feature of your species, like your skin is mottled with yellow and ours is pink, where exactly do you set the mark? If having Sighting is a deadly sin, how about Sighting genes? Is the only solution for all of you to start dying?"

The council members were growling in irritation and anger. Archer realized all of this was a lot for those people to get their minds around, he couldn't expect them to turn around the same day. They needed more. Something about the future. "There are many other species who have some level of Sighting, and strict rules about how Sighting can be used. We cannot tell you how to handle your own people, though I would like to say that on other worlds they would be welcome, but we can tell you that what holds true for the rest of the universe can also hold true for the I'Shlins."

Turmlydr looked stricken, his mind still a couple of minutes in the past. "Are you saying we too could be found with Sighting?"

Phlox nodded. "That's what I am saying. You're past the age where Sighting develops but exceptions can always happen. If you insist on culling everyone with Sighting, all of you could sign your death warrant, deprive your world of your counsel, destroy what you set in motion. I can only point out that the practical option would be to learn to live with those who have Sighting."

Archer had the opening he was looking for. "And once you learn to accept those with Sighting, you could become a member of the Federation - the United Federation of Planets. You would learn about other worlds and other ways of being. And be part of a beneficial association." He paused. "Once we have our people back, we can talk about the future. Right now we need them back."

Archer saw from the corner of his eye that Hoshi was trying to grab his attention. He got up from his chair, walking forward, a seemingly appropriate gesture which brought him within hearing distance. 'I've got them' Hoshi mouthed as he came near. Archer gave a quick flick of the head. It was time to take their leave from the Council.

At that moment, Turmlydr spoke again. "We will take you to the aliens, we know where they are being held."

xxx

 ** _T'Pol_**

She was running across the desert plains near Mount Falara, close to home, the plains she used to fly over, first as a child on an adult's lap, then as a youth in her parents' craft, then an adult coming back to well-worn and familiar paths. The plains hadn't changed from millennia past, would never change millennia into the future, they were a promise of time stood still, the anchor that undergirded her dreams.

She was running, surprised that she could still run after the past hours going to Trip, the air was dry and her lungs didn't ache, the wounds and blemishes had disappeared from her hands and feet.

She ran into the morning sun, the dry desert wind that petted her hair and her skin. For the first time in a long time she felt at ease.

Was she running from someone or running to something, the thought had hardly registered when a figure materialized on the plains, its shadow going in all cardinal points, how could that be? Somewhere, someplace, an inner voice whispered about the trillium and the I'Ph'Lis, about dependency. The thought didn't slow her step and she was coming to a place where she could see the lonely figure waiting for her.

It was Lidlbeut.

She would have stopped her step in stride and waited for the shadows to disappear but instead she found herself by the youth, looking into Lidlbeut's yellow eyes.

Lidlbeut turned her head and looked at her."Wake up! They are coming."

T'Pol stared in hesitancy.

"Wake up!" Lidlbeut urgently whispered. "Wake up! The hunters are on your trace!"

T'Pol sat up suddenly, brusquely wrenched from Vulcan's desert plains back to the unfamiliar brush trees. A sound caught her ear almost as soon as she made out her surroundings. The sounds of engines. The hunters were nearby. No! They were overhead!

Before she could put thought into action she was already running under cover of the trees, muscle memory shaped by the first hunt. The hill where the explosions took place was no longer very far, an hour or two if she could maintain her pace. She must have fallen into a deep sleep when she stopped during the night, exhausted and limping. Now it was too late, the hunters were already bearing on her.

There was nowhere to hide, no folds in the ground, nothing except the brush trees and tantalizingly close but too far the beginning of a gully. There were two crafts after her, she saw one carving a wide arc to come down from the other side. The hunters rifles were gleaming in the early light.

The brush tree cover suddenly disappeared, a small clearing soon crossed but for the rifles aiming at her. She stopped in her tracks, the hunter on the skiff taking careful aim. She saw the early light shine off the barrel. The effects of the I'Ph'Lis distorted the landscape, silenced the wind, darkened the suns, except for the gleam of that one rifle, aiming straight at her.

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

Trip was waiting in wait, looking at the hunters and their skiffs about to disembark. He may not know how to tie and throw an ahn-woon but he had other skills to put to good use. They could all hear the whine of the engines, coming closer, straight over them in a broad pass over the hill and then turning for the landing at the foot of the gully. A couple of the crafts hadn't landed yet, the hum of their engines a distant note under the morning sun.

A sense of immense foreboding, like a death knell, came over him. He assumed it was the nerves of the battle. He thought of the rebels standing lightly at the mouth of the gully, tantalizing morsels for the hunters. His thoughts went to them, and a short prayer that somehow they would meet again after the fight and not in another life.

xxx

 _ **The Hunters**_

They landed on the side of the first hill, where their vessels would be protected from any swift reprisal or unexpected counter-attack. Not that there was much to fear from a group of non-natives but the hunters, unable to separate luck from skills, prided themselves on their acumen thinking by force it must translate into each facet of their life. Now they were ready, twelve hunters and double that number in other personnel, soon to bring their wrath on the cowards hiding in the gully. Myfiudun had insisted they wait for the two stragglers who'd made the alien prisoner. He'd stopped their fire just in time, telling them that death was too sweet, if they'd just wait till this was over he'd have the alien soon screaming in pain for its litter-brothers and sisters, wishing it had never escaped the rifle.

There was nobody to be seen, nothing hiding beneath the brush trees at the bottom of the gully. The hunters and their aides spread on a line, walking slowly but steadily, rifle at the ready, their step hastened by the thought of their brethren lying halfway ahead. The report of rifles made them startle and they watched in stunned silence as three among them fell, aides or hunters they couldn't tell. Then there was a strange whistling sound and another few were laid down. The aliens must have been hiding up the slopes on each side. With a roar, Myfiudun bade the hunters retreat, too savvy to give the chase.

They'd have to clear the way with the heavy weapons. Under Myfiudun's direction, the hunters launched into an all-out attack, using all the am'sti'rung, the two ao'vud'jers, and the six ka'hornts. It didn't matter if the aliens fled further into the gully, their path would be stopped by the same hill at the back that had interrupted the flight of the first hunters. Soon there was nothing left at the entrance but brush trees laid in tatters, trunks charred and twisted for the next hundreds of yards. The hunters rushed ahead, guns drawn, rifles at the ready. This time there were two lines, half of them held in reserve.

Rushing with the others, Makrtradr felicited himself that the gully had been captured and that casualties were light.

xxx

 _ **Soval**_

Soval had heard the engines fly by, overhead, then the wide turn they had taken to give them all cover. As predicted the hunters had made a straight line for the ravine and their fallen friends. Soval's eyes narrowed. Did they really expect them to stay put, waiting to be culled and killed at will?

The first line of defense had acted as planned, letting the enemy approach and then picking a few, not too many to deter them, enough to sharpen their senses. How they reacted had told him how the attackers were armed and ensured all their weapons were aligned in the same place. Finally the mortar fire had receded and the enemy was now coming his way. They would not fire for fear of hitting their friends lain next to him.

He raised his hand, giving the signal for the baiters to be ready to start running, making sure to be seen. The next part of the plan was falling into order. By providing only a feeble defense during the storming of the gully and keeping the rest of his troupes hidden, he had lured the hunters into a deadly trap.

xxx

 _ **The Hunters**_

The hunters had arrived at the clearing where their live brethren lay. Not a shot was fired as they grabbed the wounded female and divested the older male of his stolen rifle, kicking him along the way. Myfiudun gave the order that they too be spared for the time being, promising much revenge and entertainment in their delayed killing.

The three hostages were released to swell the hunter ranks.

Yells rose in the air as aliens were spied running among the trees, retreating further down the gully. The first line gave chase, the second right on its heels. But minutes later, as they reached the rear of the gully, all changed.

From behind the hill, four light skiffs rose in the sky, each with a driver and a marksman, one of them had hair the color of I'Shlin's eyes. They swooped down on the hunters, each man unleashing a precise fire. At the same moment, hidden rebels surged out of ground hiding, unleashing volleys and fighting skills on the hunters standing almost over their heads. Fierce fighting erupted. Clearly losing, panicked hunters started streaming out of the gully, Myfiudun screaming in vain at them to stay.

Meanwhile the four light vessels had kept with their flight close to the brush trees, coming to the weapons and inflicting more losses along the way. They turned around for another volley. Recovered from the initial surprise, one of the heavier mortars was brought in line, aimed and fired. The shot rang true and two Vulcan-manned skiffs were touched and fell from the sky, one fast spinning its riders to a plunging death, the other sputtering slowly like a leaden leaf. If the driver was an expert the two riders might even survive.

Myfiudun rallied the remaining hunters to the grounded crafts. They took off in disarray, briefly giving chase to the fleeing skiffs until rifle fire out of the gully fell another co-rider. The remaining seven skids quickly turned tail and ran. On the last of the fleeing vessels Myfiudun was cussing and ruing the day. They had left even more weapons and crafts in the hands of the aliens, hadn't even brought back the old male and the wounded female.

He quickly counted the I'Shlins making their way to the compound. Fifteen were left of the initial thirty-seven, four hunters and eleven crewmen. At least they had shot some of the aliens. His gaze turned to the floor of the heavy aircraft and the chained alien they had captured early in the battle. A female, he saw. One of the aliens even though she wasn't dressed the same. He would make sure her screams reached all the way to the others.


	21. The Forest 21 - The Reunion

xxx

 ** _Trip_**

The Vulcans had efficiently sorted and catalogued men and machines. On one side the dead I'Shlins and Vulcans lay next to each other, a lot less of the Vulcans, on the other side, the wounded were separated between those to be tended or left to their own device, weapons had likewise been sorted and triaged after the battle.

Trip couldn't seem to escape a sense of grave foreboding, like a threat looming from the sky, and he kept looking up from time to time as if waiting for something to materialize. He heard Soval limp towards him. The hunters had been none too pleased by his display of the hostages, letting him know with feet and fists how much they took umbrage. They were all lucky the hunters had been routed before they could take away their leader and most cunning commander.

Trip turned to the older Vulcan, answering him before he could inquire further. "We have eleven light riders, fifteen usable rifles, and all of the heavy weapons though not much ammunition." Most of it the hunters had spent on stripping the gully of its vegetation.

Soval nodded. "Some of the wounded need immediate attention. I don't expect the hunters will be back today but their number will increase with the next foray."

"Perhaps they'll accept this as Vulcan territory." Trip realized as soon as he said it that the joke fell flat.

Soval eyed him closely. "Can you tell T'Pol's whereabouts?" He had learned from Trip's reaction to the re-awakening bond that Humans didn't have much understanding of the effects of a bond. Trip unconsciously stared at the sky, gripped again by the same sense of foreboding. Soval noted his agitation. "Are you troubled?" he asked.

Trip sighed. "I don't know, it doesn't make sense. We routed the hunters and I should feel relief. But instead I just have this sense of anxiety. Perhaps because I don't know how much longer we can hope to hold them off." They had lost some rebels and a handful were wounded. But the hunters, even if their ranks had been decimated, could go and get more people and the Vulcans couldn't.

Soval nodded slowly. Trip was unaware of it but he was reacting to the bond. T'Pol was geographically close and once re-awakened the bond would not be denied. It led to two conclusions, both unsettling. The first was that T'Pol was not in control. There could be a number of reasons. The second was based on the fact Vulcans did not emote. Their reactions were purely an effect of the situation. If Trip was feeling a sense of foreboding, T'Pol must be facing uncomfortable odds.

He chose not to say anything.

Trip suddenly grabbed his head with both hands, breathing heard. It was over in an instant but his eyes had grown wide. "They're hurting her!" He shouted. Soval could only stare at the Human in sorrowful sympathy. Trip started at a run for where they held the weapons, stopped as he realized he wouldn't know where to go, any thoughts of rescue upended on the shoals of reality. He came back to Soval, his face a mask of sorrow. He walked past and came back, striding to and fro like a tiger in a cage, hitting one hand with a fist, turning and turning, but forever faced with the fact there was nowhere to go. The bond had been re-established and neither partner was exerting control.

Soval closed his eyes and his mind to the emotional upheaval. He couldn't let the plight of the one detract from the safety of the many. As he stared at the ground at his feet, he grieved for the Human's upcoming loss. And for his.

xxx

 ** _Makrtradr_**

The tall I'Shlin grabbed her by the shoulder, neglecting to retract its razor claws and T'Pol bit back a yelp of pain. Makrtradr had to keep himself from protesting, he hated to see merchandise blemished through rough handling. But there would be no selling her. She was about to be killed in the most atrocious manner, it didn't matter much if there was some bruising from unkind touch.

Myfiudun dragged the captive to the other side of the compound, throwing her against the wall and kicking her into submission. She sunk into a ball at the bottom of the wall, minimizing the surface available for further kicking. It didn't help much, Myfiudun was in a state. The aliens had all of the hunters' heavy weapons and most of their crafts. This one would pay for their collective sin and this was just the beginning.

Makrtradr couldn't help thinking that the best outcome would be if the council forces got involved and helped wrangle the aliens back, save what they could of the weapons and the equipment. Pride would lead the remaining hunters to a total loss. It didn't matter anymore that the shame of the failed hunt would forever bow the scruff of the hunters. Not only failed but they'd be trounced and beaten, and lost many good men in search of an elusive prey. It would forever be known in hunting lore as Makrtradr's Great Failed Hunt.

As if in answer to his unspoken thoughts, dark riders cut off the light of the suns. Shading his eyes from the glare Makrtradr looked on as a squadron of Council forces landed in the compound. The hunters were all surprised, their ears laid back in challenge, looking at the security forces as one looks upon an intruder, why did they came and what did they plan? Myfiudun gave a last kick and strode over, chest bombed in command stance, demanding to know what was going on. Makrtradr saw that in the back the alien was still conscious but wisely not making her presence known.

A shimmer was seen beside the Council forces and an alien appeared, like the one with hair the color of Ishlin eyes, though his wasn't. Makrradr looked at him nervously, wondering if he had came to exact revenge. The presence of the security forces along this new alien did not promise anything positive.

The captain of the Council forces looked around the compound, frowning. He finally walked to him, summons in hand. "I am Captain Kwa'durn, You were told to suspend all hunt, that the aliens were now property of the Council. There should be twenty-five aliens here, but I only see one, and she is not even one of the twenty-five."

Archer glanced at the humanoid alien against the wall, a woman with longish hair, dressed in some kind of pelts, barefeet and feral. His gaze would have brushed over her but he had a feeling she was someone he'd known before. He made a mental note to check it out later. His entire attention was on Kwa'durn. He needed to make sure the universal translator was picking up all the subtleties of communication.

Makrtradr tried to explain to Kwa'durn how the order had come late, the hunt was already underway, and he was not aware of the cease and desist until he got back to the compound. All the while knowing he wasn't being believed. He saw the taller alien with he rounded ears narrow his eyes at him. Based on his experience trading he could tell the tall alien was not pleased. Soon he was talking into his communicator. Then he stopped and stared at Kwa'durn.

"Enterprise has found biosigns a couple of hours from here, both I'Shlins and Vulcans."

"I will send transports. We will bring them back here." Kwa'durn replied. Archer nodded. The I'Shlins had been very clear about not relinquishing control of their people or the aliens. Enterprise, and unbeknownst to the I'Shlins, the Nahr, had agreed to go along in consideration of how significant the I'Shlin concession had been given their feelings about Sighting. At least until circumstances warranted rushing in and grabbing everyone themselves. But all indications were that nothing was going on, or that whatever had happened, had happened. _Kaiidth_ , as the Vulcans said.

"My people will go with yours. The Vulcans will be wary of a group of I'Shlins coming at them from the sky."

Kwa'durn eyed Archer thoughtfully. "Very well."

Archer would much rather have sent Enterprise teams directly to where the Vulcans were, he would much rather have been leading them himself, but Kwa'durn and he were stuck waiting at the compound, unofficial hostages to each other's good faith.

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

The sounds could not be mistaken and Trip thought of Soval accusingly. He had said the hunters would not be back the same day, obviously mistaken. Of all the things that a Vulcan would finally be wrong about, it had to be today of all days and about being attacked.

Trip swore in frustration and exhaustion, he couldn't re-do another battle, none of them could. Even though the Vulcans didn't complain, there was something in the way they held themselves that Trip had tongue-in-cheek named the 'floppy-ear syndrome'. They were not up for another fight.

He took off at a trot towards the battery, perhaps he could find some rounds not yet fired, enough to anchor a strategy. Soval was already there and looked up when Trip arrived. The psionic transmission from T'Pol had abruptly stopped and Soval had reassured him it meant only that T'Pol had finally set up her blocks, that if anything bad had happened to her it would feel much worse.

"We need to set up for a fight" Trip told him. The Vulcan didn't answer, he didn't even move, his whole being focused on the sounds. "These are not our hunters." Trip looked at him as if he'd sprouted another head. First, that he would be able to tell the hunters from others on the basis of distant engine noises, second that he wouldn't be slightly more worried. The Vulcan looked back at him with equanimity. "This new commander is knowledgeable. We need to wait."

Wait they did, in tense silence, at least for Trip. Then from the sky, black rectangles approached, a dozen-strong, too many for the Vulcans to hope fight. Trip understood what Soval meant. There was nothing for them to do. The rebels were hidden in the brush trees along with the battery, ready for a last sortie. The two of them stood immobile as the black rectangles landed one after the other at the edge of the gully. Each was a four-man transport, there must be fifty hunters in there. Trip tightened his hold on his rifle. He would go out fighting.

The ships had landed in a diamond formation. Soval and Trip waited. The lead ship's door opened and two shapes walked out. Only two. Their arms were held up in the air showing they were unarmed. Trip noticed Soval didn't relax the hold on his rifle. The two figures came over slowly. Trip was having a hard time recognizing the I'Shlins, the heat from the transport exhausts made their shapes tremble and indistinct. It was either the heat or the effects of starvation. He noticed Soval didn't relax the hold on his rifle.

The two shapes walked to where he was standing, arms still held up high. One of the I'Shlins he had never seen the likes of before, small and dark haired, his skin without mottling. Trip didn't lower his rifle. The I'Shlin stopped in front of him. "Trip, don't you recognize me? It's me, Malcolm!"

xxx

 ** _Makrtradr_**

The doors to the compound opened and stretchers came in, at least fifteen. Makrtradr looked on as a strange-looking alien, another one yet again, walked between two stretchers, insistently talking to Kwa'durn. He was some kind of doctor. The stretchers with I'Shlins were whisked to the infirmary and those with Vulcans remained in the compound. The strange being was guiding other aliens, all Humans, in administering care, his voice rising above the mounting din.

The doors opened again and another group walked in. Limping ahead was the grey-haired alien followed by a group of tired-looking Vulcans. The strange-looking doctor ran to his side but the grey-haired alien wouldn't be swayed. He stayed rooted to where he stood, taking in every detail of the compound, minutely saluting the Human captain when he saw him. Kwa'durn walked to the older man, whose entire behavior talked of leadership and battlefields and glory dearly earned. He saluted him and received a nod in return, military man to military man, they each knew the worth of the other.

Kwa'durn then came over to Makrtradr, his entire body language one of disdain. Wealthy scions pretending to be real men, good only so long as the prey was soft and scared, they had botched this operation in a manner worthy of textbook fame. He would make sure the lore reflected that the aliens hadn't used Sighting, to make the pain and shame of the hunters even greater. He would release the hunters, they could crawl back to their lairs with their tail beween their legs, but Makrtradr was going straight to jail, as the instigator and for contempt of Council. When the hunters' families were done with him, he'd be lucky if he'd have one scruff hair left to use as a toothpick.

xxx

 _ **Archer**_

Archer had been standing by the doors, watching the stretchers and Vulcans stream in, when he finally saw Trip cross the threshold to the compound. Archer saw Trip's face lit up and he waited for the engineer to come over and give him a warm embrace.

And stood rooted in place when Trip instead bypassed him with hardly a perfunctory "Good to see you, Captain" and made a straight beeline to where the feral woman sat cross-legged against the wall. He saw Trip go to his knees and look at her silently, thin and gaunt, long hair unkempt, a visual match for the scruffy and overly thin Trip. The engineer slowly bent his head towards her as if he going to kiss her or wanted to share some other private message, forehead inches from her face. She raised a hand and laid it on the side of his face, like a soft embrace. Trip in turn palmed her face in his hand. When she inclined her head to follow his hand, Archer saw for the first time the pointed ear and it hit him like lighting that he had planned to check it out later and that the woman was T'Pol.

Archer turned to Soval in astonished shock and surprise and realized upon seeing the older man that it was no surprise and he already knew. Archer looked again at the couple finally putting two and two together. ' _He shares Sighting with another'._ He wasn't sure how he felt about the discovery but if Soval of all people could bear it, there was really nothing to do but go along with it.

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

It had been a silent flight back from the gully, Trip still in shock that the I'Shlins were in fact Reed and Phlox. He was silent in a corner of the transport, looking at the landscape, picking out the place where they'd first hid, where they'd first killed. He'd insisted to let the others go first, Vulcans could turn on a dime but Humans needed more time to process stuff.

The transport landed outside of the compound. The doors opened and Trip almost stepped back, would they really have him volunteer to go inside, perhaps to be kept prisoner again? But there was no other way and he soon crossed the threshold. In the middle of the courtyard stood Jon. And then he saw her. A smile lit his face and before he even knew it he was on his way over. She looked so different, like someone he'd never seen before. He went to her side and fell to his knees. She looked up at him. She blocked the bond but he could tell she'd been waiting.

All he wanted was to hold her, squeeze her, erase the months of solitude. He suddenly remembered what she had said, the place she was in that he couldn't pronounce, realized that was the same noise the hunters made when they told them about a promised land at the end of the hunting. He bent her face towards hers, wanting to kiss her, wanting to tell her that she was safe and he was hers.

She put her hand on his face and the bond lit up in his mind like a thousand suns. He cupped her face in turn. There was no need to talk. They both sat there in a silent embrace.

xxx

 _ **T'Pol**_

Her mind was still abuzz from the effects of the I'Ph'Lis when Myfiudun delivered the first kick. The pain took her breath away, but as he gave way to his anger the accumulating pain chased away the last fog of the I'Ph'Lis. Suddenly she could feel the bond, and when Myfiudin stopped his frenzy to go check with the council forces, she quickly rebuilt her shields, anxious to protect Trip from any psionic bleeding.

After that, she waited, prone against the wall, not bothering to make her presence known to Archer or any of the others, there was only one person she was waiting for. Finally the doors opened on someone with hair the color of Lidlbeut's eyes. She couldn't take her eyes off him. Just waiting.

He saw her as soon as he stepped in, in a moment making his way over, mindless of anyone standing between her and him. And then he was at her side, on his knees, and she could see through the three-day beard how scrawny he had become and the weight of long weeks alone. He bent his head as if to kiss her, he bent his head as if to whisper what could not be expressed. She welcomed his face in the cup of her hand, her fingers lightly finding the psionic centers, her soul reverberating with the reclaimed joinder. He returned the caress, his fingers blindly stroking around her psionic points, the touch of his skin like a long-lingering kiss.

And then Phlox was at their side, scanning her, frowning. He took a hypo and quickly injected her, took another hypo and pushed it against her chest. "I'll call a stretcher," he said.

"I can walk." T'Pol objected.

"I want you in Sickbay." Phlox countered

"I'll walk her there." Trip quickly defused the burgeoning stand-off.

Phlox looked up and nodded. It would free up the stretcher for another. "See that you do." He went to the next wounded. Trip helped T'Pol up. She took a step and winced. Before she could control the pain he had scooped her in his arms.

"I can walk." She reproached, not as forcefully.

"And I can fly" He replied. She quickly gave up the fight, letting her head rest against his shoulder. Walking hurt almost as much as breathing. She had been right to think that everything would be better once she found Trip.


	22. The Forest 22 - The Shadows

**_Archer_**

Archer was about ready to explode. If not at something or someone, he thought he'd blow up in a blaze of glory. He stood up, leaned on his fists on his desk, barking at the intercom. "Hoshi, get me Starfleet!"

"Sir", Hoshi's melodious voice sounded back as she winced, unseen, at the screech in his voice, "Who would you like to talk to?" Starfleet was a huge organization with hundreds of thousands of members. Which one of those was "Starfleet"?

"Admiral Toussaint." The name was spoken through clenched teeth. Hoshi sighed. She should have known. It was about the only name she'd heard since the Feurata incident.

"I'll let you know when I have him, sir." Hoshi threw every soothing frequency she could in that last statement.

Archer whirled when he heard the chime of the communication. Good Hoshi. She was always the best. He leaned over and turned the screen his way. Toussaint was somber, with the mulling quality that let Archer know his call was expected. "Captain."

Archer briskly exhaled, decided to pass on the customary niceties. "What is this about the Nahr?!"

"And a good day to you too, Captain." Toussaint sighed. "I guess you're talking about the group of rebel Vulcans currently aboard Enterprise."

Archer gripped both sides of his desk in a white-knuckled grip. "That would be them, yes. We were going to ship them over for medical care but my chief medical officer tells me we can't, that we have to operate them here on Enterprise, when there's a Vulcan ship sitting hundreds of yards away."

"Thousands of yards."

Archer sputtered. "Hundreds, thousands... The Nahr is behind the nearest asteroid, we can meet them in minutes." They'd been careful to keep the Nahr hidden from the I'Shlins, it was too early for a reveal. "The rebels were never meant to be anyplace other than there. What is this about not sending them back?!" As far as Archer was concerned, they were Vulcan's headache, not his.

"The rebels are criminals. Let's not forget the deaths at Feurata. The Brolains are clamoring for judgment and Vulcan also wants to try them in their courts. We won't surrender them unless we receive assurance they won't be subject to capital punishment. Otherwise they'll remain on Enterprise to be judged under Federation law."

That certainly didn't pacify Archer. Enterprise was not some penal colony nor was it a court of the Federation. "Vulcans don't kill people. They hold all life to be sacred. They don't have capital punishment."

"All they have to do is swear as much."

Archer closed his eyes. Pigs would fly on Vulcan before they did. Politics. If the Federation had been waiting to poke their finger into Vulcan's eye, he wished they'd done it on someone else's watch. He took a step back from his desk, frowning. "In the meantime by preventing us from sending them back to the Nahr you're forcing my Denobulan doctor to operate on them when there are qualified Vulcan doctors available. How about the risk to their lives?"

Toussaint sneered. "Come on Captain, you know that the Nahr's doctors can come over to Enterprise and second your doctor. That's acceptable under Starfleet regulations."

"But it's not the same healing environment."

"We all do what we need to. Just make sure the rebels are securely held in the brig."

"Well..." Archer elongated the 'well', "right now they're under the care of my Chief Medical Officer, who reminds me that his medical opinion trumps any of my decisions, and he's not letting them go anywhere." Archer stopped, looked at Toussaint. "And then we have the small matter of Ambassador Soval. I'm sure you know regulation AM-001056. I don't know it myself but I'm told it allows the ambassador to use any Starfleet vessel he's aboard as a satellite office." Archer cleared his throat meaningfully.

On the screen, Toussaint was squinting at him. "They should be in the brig. I can't believe Soval would protect them, they've killed his aides and his crew."

"I don't know about protecting them but I don't think he'll agree to have them in the brig. Vulcan's way of dealing with criminals are different than ours. And they don't use capital punishment."

"Whether you like it or not, _Captain_ , the Federation wants Vulcan to officially say as much. Otherwise, they'll be judged by the Federation and be sent to a Federation prison. Unless Feurata makes the case that their complaint takes precedence and that their laws should prevail. So long as they don't have capital punishment, of course."

Archer scoffed. "These rebels just made mincemeat of a squadron of armed aliens and you would send them to purge their sentence in a place other than Vulcan? I'd wouldn't trust them anywhere else."

"You forget that they succeeded thanks to Soval. I read Trip's reports. They can easily be controlled in the right environment."

All of a sudden Archer had visions of folly and dangerous self-confidence. Was Enterprise even the right environment? "I'll talk to Soval." He ended the conversation. Perhaps if Soval understood the risks, he could lean on T'Pau and get her to tell the Federation what they wanted to hear. Though he doubted it. Based on his experience on the Forge, he had a feeling she wouldn't bend.

Xxx

 ** _Phlox_**

Phlox tore off his gown and gloves, threw them with anger in the disposal chute. Struek watched him with a quizzical look. "Savages!" Phlox threw at him as an explanation.

"You are angry because of what happened?" Struek hazarded, not sure what made the Denobulan doctor react so forcefully.

"You bet I am. Aren't you? Reconstructive surgery!" He spat the words out like they were snapping vipers.

"She is young."

Phlox stopped mid-rant. "What are you trying to say? That she'll recover, therefore its ok? Or that it's all her fault anyway?"

"Neither. Only that had she been sexually mature the damage would not have been as extensive."

Phlox nodded. "Well, at least she can still have children, if she chooses. I understand she's going to become a monk?"

"An acolyte." Struek inclined his head. "Once she gets back to Vulcan."

That got Phlox to his other pet peeve, about Starfleet not letting the rebels go to the Nahr. He looked at Struek askance, wondering if the Vulcan did it on purpose. But no, he was Vulcan, he wouldn't be antagonizing him just for the fun of it. Would he? "Who do we have left?" He asked, changing the subject.

"Ambassador Soval" came the answer. Phlox threw another sideways glance at Struek. The question had been rhetorical, the ambassador had insisted on being taken care after everyone else. He quickly checked the chart. There was a bone fragment stuck in the shoulder. The man had been in pain that whole time. Vulcans.

xxx

 ** _T'Pau_**

Minister Sphelt stood quietly by the desk, waiting for the administrator of all Vulcan to finish reading his report. When she was done, T'Pau got up and walked to the window, looking over the desert. Sphelt waited as the minutes ticked by, there was much to digest. Finally T'Pau turned to him. "What degree of certainty?"

"I have personally reviewed all the sources, Minister. According to our tracking algorithms, the information is ninety-seven point six percent accurate."

"Administrator V'Las may have been a pawn of the Romulans?"

"Actually, Minister, the projected accuracy of that specific piece of information is ninety-nine point nine percent." Sphelt pursed his lips, his ears greening at having to say what came next. "Our security forces have been unable to locate V'Las. He has not been seen on his estate of Pershakar since the fifteenth of Arkanar and there is no record that he left Vulcan. But all biometric searches seem to indicate he is no longer on the planet."

"He is in Romulan space." T'Pau phrased it not as a question but as a statement.

"That would be the logical inference. The other logical inference is that his accomplices remained."

"I thought the Ministry of Security captured all the rebel groups."

"Not all, Minister. We have reviewed all the connection points between the events on Feurata and those of the Fifth Day of the Second Rising of Turok. The rebel groups were independent of each other. There may be more – there are more. Our hypothesis is that the double agent has connection to all those groups, activates them in a carefully orchestrated fashion with the goal to destabilize the government."

T'Pau was not pleased. There were still too many who could not see that Surak was the one and only path. "And thee says that agent is on the Council of Ministers? We need to find him." She paused. "Or her."

Sphelt nodded in response. "The agent may or may not be on the Council of Ministers but has access to its deliberations. Which means it could also be posted in any number of branches."

"And thee says this infiltration reaches into the Federation?"

"The events at Feurata could not have unfolded without support from within the Federation. With your permission I shall reach out to Starfleet and share our findings."

"Starfleet? How does thee know thee interlocutor is not compromised?"

Sphelt hesitated for a while. A shadow seemed to fill the room. "Because he is. By us."

xxx

 ** _T'Pol_**

Someone was suffocating. She heard it in the sudden cough that wouldn't stop, the strident breaths that wouldn't end, the crushing weight over her chest. She struck out with both arms to try and get it off her. She flailed but she had no strength.

"There, there, it's all going to be fine." Phlox caught her arms, brought them back to her side. She gave no sign that she could hear him but her breathing had quieted. There was no risk. The ventilator kept her sufficiently oxygenated, this was just a reaction from the injured lung tissues, unsettling but normal.

"Doctor!" Trip was urgently whispering at his side. Phlox shook his head, bad enough that he had to deal with an armload of ailing aliens without Mr. Tucker going into panic mode. "She's fine, Commander, she's fine. I've told you before, hmm? She's on the ventilator, she's not suffocating. This is a normal reaction as the fungus clears her system. It was all that ambient humidity. It will get better over time." While he was talking, Phlox had calibrated and injected a hypo in T'Pol's neck. "There." He stepped back, looking appraisingly at the monitors above her head.

"Now, she just needs to rest. And so do you. Unless you want to come back to Sickbay?" If Trip wanted to stay underfoot, Phlox could certainly arrange it. He'd had his fill of every member of the crew invading his sickbay with some flimsy excuse just so they could take a peek and check that their commander was back. Though, to be fair, a Denobulan crew would already have invaded his sickbay with cots and sleeping bags. One should count one's blessings.

Trip looked fornorly at the doctor. "No, that's fine. It's just that… is there anything I can do?"

Phlox thought a while, then brightened into a large smile. "Remember, when we destroyed the spheres in the Expanse? The impact on her skin?"

Trip certainly remembered. "It took her longer to heal." That was when he had learned T'Pol's age and learned that she viewed him as an intimate. Thanks to an old oil painting. Trip couldn't supress a smile at the memory.

"Well, it will speed the healing process if you could massage her hands and feet. I'll give you the compound." Phlox rummaged through a drawer, extracting a medical cylinder. "Feel free to start anytime."

xxx

 _ **Soval**_

"Thee are not impacted by the situation. Thee could transport to the Nahr." T'Pau was looking at the Vulcan ambassador, seated at his desk on Enterprise, his arm in a soft cast.

Soval was calculating the odds. He had insisted that the nine healthy rebels be lodged next to his office, which Captain Archer had granted. There were five wounded in Sickbay, including T'Agad, whose plight was indeterminate. The Human captain seemed to have instinctively grasped that locking up the rebels at a time when their belief system was shaken would anchor them against the Federation and Vulcan.

There was still a chance they might renounce their views, but they had learned fighting skills from him on Y'Cr'Stea. Having thirteen or so Vulcan terrorists on a ship of eighty presented a measurable risk. On his side were T'Pol and T'Agad but as a would-be acolyte T'Agad had committed herself to a life of non-violence. She would help neither the rebels nor he. The odds were not in the Humans' favor, he couldn't abandon the ship.

"Tomorrow the presence of the Nahr will be made known to the I'Shlins. Captain Archer and the Human officers have been able to bring the I'Shlins to reconsider their position towards alien telepaths but I fear the captain has been less successful at influencing their views about I'Shlins telepaths. It will require time. And we still have to make contact with the tribe and point out the benefits of our approach." If he went aboard the Nahr it may be months before she saw him again.

T'Pau eyed him for long seconds. Finally she nodded her accord. "Very well. Captain T'Mora is well versed in diplomatic negotiations. Thee shall stay on Enterprise and bring the rebels to Vulcan. Once the Federation gives up its frivolous pursuit."

Soval would have sighed. His shoulder ached and T'Pau was not going to bend. Sometimes his task as ambassador was to bring parties from miles apart to within inches. Keeping the rebels safe from the hunters had been easier.

xxx

 ** _Reed_**

"What do you want?" Reed asked the image that suddenly appeared on his screen. He checked to see if he could find the source of the transmission, soon resigning himself to the fact he wouldn't. If there was something Harris was good at, it was covering his traces.

"What a way to welcome an old friend." Harris replied, his eyes a-wrinkle with a smile as he looked at his best and most recalcitrant agent.

Reed sighed. "With a friend like you, I'm in no want for enemies. What brings you to my humble abode?" Sarcasm was dripping from his tone.

Harris grew serious, leaning forward as if he were to impart momentous news. Which Reed would later admit, he had. "How much do you trust Captain Archer?"

Captain Archer ?! The security man jumped at the insinuation. If one couldn't trust Archer… the world was coming to an orderly end, that's what. "Implicitly, and why do you ask?" Reed had grown to learn that there was always another thought rumbling behind Harris' benevolent façade.

"Good, good. We'll need to bring him in on a slight… issue we're facing." Harris interlaced his fingers, looked at Reed with something akin to sorrow. "It seems our nature will always catch us short. We have a traitor in the Federation."

Reed's eyebrows almost hit his airline. He waited silently for Harris to follow. "A higher-up in Starfleet was alerted by our Vulcan friends. The information was solid and meshes with what we have learned from the Feurata investigation. It required an insider to do what the Vulcans did."

Reed stared at Harris. "An insider on Feurata, I take it. I'm here on Enterprise, millions of miles from the planet. And you are telling me this because…?"

Harris was no longer smiling. "Because the rebels are on Enterprise and are the key to finding the traitor."

"I suspect you want me to go and ask them and they'll just give it up?" Reed couldn't help himself with the sarcasm. He resented Harris for having just shown up on his screen and for never wanting to let go of his service with the Section.

Harris eyed him as if he knew exactly what Reed was thinking. "Something like that, yes. So long as Enterprise can hold on to them."

Malcolm chuckled at the dig, the rebels were securely under his guard. In return he goaded Harris one more time. "And Section 31 couldn't figure out who it is?"

Harris almost looked pained. "The traitor could be Starfleet or the Federation... or Section 31..."

Reed let his eyebrows express his surprise. Now that was an unwelcome thought. He stood silently looking at his former boss, mental gears turning and turning as he considered how they were going to crack that particular nut.


	23. The Forest 23 - The Solstice

xxx

 _ **T'Pol**_

Trip entered sickbay with a lift in his step. As he approached the bed, he could hear Phox speaking. "Now, when I take the breathing tube away, you first will feel like you are not breathing properly. This is perfectly normal. You have been oxygenated at 100% which is higher than the norm. But then your lungs will start doing their work and the feeling will subside as you breathe on your own. If you start coughing again, I'll put the tube back in and we'll wait another couple of days. Allright?"

"Yes, Doctor" T'Pol still looked gaunt and exhausted.

"Here we go" Phlox gently removed the breathing tube. T'Pol repressed a sense of intense dizziness, pushed down on the feeling of panic that was rising in her throat as oxygen failed to reach her - and then she took a breath. Then another. And another. "Good" Phlox was smiling broadly. "I think you'll be fine now. There is no reason why you cannot keep recovering in your quarters - so long as you vists sickbay twice a day." He turned and saw Trip. "Ah, Commander Tucker. Let me get out of your way."

Trip approached the bed, skin cream in hand. "Hey, your personal beauty assistant reporting for duty." He sat on the bed and took her hand in what had become a private ritual.

But T'Pol was not finished with Phlox. "When can I go back on duty?" She asked as he retreated. The doctor looked embarrassed, staring at his feet. "Hmm. Have you talked to Captain Archer? I'll ask him to come down." Trip looked up in surprise. He'd never known Phlox to pivot and evade about when someone could go back on duty, he'd usually only delay them by so many hours.

It took no time before Jon showed up at T'Pol's side. If he found anything incongruous in the sight of his Chief Engineer massaging his First Officer's hand and feet, he didn't give any sign of it. Captain Archer looked at T'Pol as if he had something embarrassing to share, then seemed to square his shoulders and his chin. "Ah, I haven't really had time to catch up with you yet. There's a temporary issue, a bureaucratic glitch that we're trying to work through."

Both Trip and T'Pol looked up at him silently. "There's really no good way to say it. Because you've been missing longer than the bureaucratic regulatory time, Starfleet's taken your name off the system. Now, it would usually be a matter of hours to reverse..." Archer let his voice trail trying to think how best to say what came next. "I don't know if you're aware of it, there's some friction between Vulcan and the Federation about the rebels. I mean, nothing that couldn't be resolved in a matter of minutes if everyone weren't so damn stubborn." He started getting heated up again at the thought. "But nobody's talking so everything having to do with Vulcan citizens is in stasis."

The silence was thick enough to cut with a knife. Trip was the first one to gather his thoughts in a retort. "You're saying that she's being held hostage to the political craziness between the powers that be?"

"Now, Trip, I wouldn't go that far. It's just that no paperwork is being processed until the issue with the rebels is addressed."

Trip scoffed. "And the difference is...?" He shook his head. "I can't believe this. These damn bureaucrats, they got her off the books before the search was officially over!" He looked up at Archer. "Starfleet should be ashamed of itself."

"Starfleet takes its orders from the Federation." Archer was quick to come to the defense of the organization. "The whole thing is a mess. Even Enterprise is impacted. We've got to hold the rebels until Vulcan and the Federation come to their senses. We're a ship of exploration, not a prison." Archer looked at T'Pol. "I'm sorry, my hands are tied. I'd gladly ignore the going-ons and tell you to come back on duty, but the core computer won't know who you are, you won't be able to access any of the systems. Reed's checked and there's no workaround, he had to give you a profile as a VIP guest just to get you back into your quarters."

Trip scowled at that. "Did he check with Hesse? She can work miracles." He wisely refrained from saying anything specific about how Hannah had figured her way around a number of the more mundane bureaucratic restrictions that came with being a military vessel on a mission of exploration. It was Archer's turn to shake his head. "Hannah, the quartermaster, everyone who can write two pieces of code." He looked at T'Pol. "Your name has been restricted at the central level, nothing works. Yet."

T'Pol's tone was frosty. "What are my options while we wait?"

Archer had the sudden insight that recommending reading research journals would not be well received. "We're still trying to figure something out, I'll let you know what we come up with. I have to go now accompany Captain T'Mar to meet with the I'Shlins, the first actual meeting face to face. I'll let you know how it went." Archer made a hasty retreat, leaving two somber commanders in his wake.

xxx

 _ **Soval**_

"Captain T'Mora reports the I'Shlins are reconsidering the treatment of their telepathic citizens, the ones they call with sighting."

T'Pau nodded. "That is favorable news. What are the options under consideration?"

"We have raised the possibility of setting up a separate state and offered for Vulcan to monitor adherence to guiding principles of telepathic behavior. That solution has not currently found favor with the council of the I'Shlins. From what our medical experts can ascertain, the level of telepathy in the affected individuals is quite strong, stronger than even the highest psionic individuals on Vulcan, and the past behavior of that population has not been... optimal."

To the tune of tens of millions of dead, but that information was not strictly necessary to the construction of his statement and Soval did not volunteer it.

"The other option is to set up a colony of their own on a different world and let both populations evolve a protocol of behavior with each other. The cartographers on the Nahr are researching options. The Nahr will have to ferry them to the colony, remain until they have a stable organization." As he said it, Soval reflected that would not be too difficult, based on the report from T'Pol, the psionic population already had a well established organization. Though the release of past oppression might lead the tribe down a different path, there was no telling how stable its government would be in the future.

"How many would need to be resettled?" T'Pau asked.

"T'Pol reports the tribe comprises two hundred and twenty-nine individuals. Based on medical reports, we should expect an additional five hundred and sixty individuals every year. Only one or two of those who acquired Sighting reached the safe haven of The Forest on any given hunt." The I'Shlin name was truly unpronounceable. "The optimal solution would be for the I'Shlins to agree to a separate state but odds are not overwhelming that will happen." He paused, looked at a padd on his desk. "And of course, the tribe needs to be consulted about its preference."

"Have T'Pol be the interlocutor with the tribe." T'Pau's statement brooked no dissent.

Soval inclined his head in acknowledgement. Starfleet may have frozen all dealings concerning Vulcan citizens, as if that could somehow weigh on T'Pau, but Vulcan had no such constraints. Logic dictated that if T'Pol was not gainfully employed by Starfleet, her talents were available to Vulcan.

xxx

 ** _Trip_**

Trip was lying on his back, wide awake. He turned and mechanically put his hand on T'Pol breast. He could tell that she too wasn't asleep. They'd pretty much taken to sleeping in her quarters, the cat was out of the bag as far as their being a couple was concerned, and the heat of her room was better for her lungs. He could feel how incredibly thin she still was but he could also tell that she was finally turning the corner.

"You are not sleeping." She stated.

It didn't take a detective to figure that out. "Seems that makes two of us. And don't give me the line about Vulcans not needing sleep. When you're sick, you require just as much sleep as a Human does."

"I am not -" T'Pol stopped. It would be difficult to pretend she was in perfect health. She didn't finish the thought.

Trip turned to look at her, getting up on an elbow. Her hair was below her shoulders, since she was not reinstated into Starfleet, she saw little reason to get back into a regulatory haircut. "I don't know..." He started. "Since this whole Feurata thing, I just don't feel it." He could see her profile in the dark, knew she couldn't see him. He felt safe talking without being seen. "I used to be in love with Enterprise, with the engines. Now the whole thing seems like a childish pursuit." He could sense she had turned her head towards him slightly.

"Is that what happens when Humans need a vacation?"

Trip rolled back on his back, thinking. "Perhaps. Or perhaps not. First, you disappear and I think you're dead, then I think I am going to die at Feurata, then Soval and I are about to die, and then we get sold for some wealthy sickos' private safari... I'm not even sure what I feel anymore. Maybe I do need a vacation."

"Have you talked to Dr. Phlox?"

Trip hesitated, but then he might as well tell her. "We had some words after you disappeared. Some pretty harsh words from me. I was really depressed and I don't think I reacted the right way. I'm not sure I feel up to calling on him."

"Phlox is a professional. He will understand."

"Perhaps it's simply that I'm not too crazy about going to him." Trip felt slightly embarrassed and wanted to change he subject. "That was me. Your turn now, why are you awake?"

"It is difficult for Vulcans to not be professionally engaged."

Trip was amused. "You mean, that's why Vulcans are always working, no vacations? Not because you have a work ethic but because you can't deal with not working?"

"It is not a matter for levity." She huffed.

Trip was instantly sorry. "Listen, I didn't mean to tease. How about tomorrow we start on figuring out how to keep you professionally engaged and me disengaged." His hand found her breast again. He nestled closer to her, bringing his legs over hers, his erection nestled between the two of them. "But for now, for falling asleep, I think I've got a remedy."

Nothing happened. He hesitated, silently dealing with his disappointment, trying to dial back the fire in his loins, rationalizing to himself that she was still under the weather, things would eventually come back to normal. And then all of a sudden he was flat on his back, her mouth hungrily covering his, demanding what was hers. Trip smiled as he returned her kiss with fervor. The present was all he needed for the time being, the future would see to itself.

xxx

 ** _T'Agad Story_**

"I want T'Agad to be my bondmate."

Soval looked at the tall and dark man in his office, quietly reflecting on the fate that had turned him into a den father for a bunch of rebels. "She is going to be an acolyte at Mount Selaya. She cannot be bonded."

The young man took a step toward him, and Soval wondered if perhaps violence was at stake. "There is no barrier to her being bonded other than the ones we create. She can be bonded, if she'll have me."

Soval nodded thinly. It was accurate. Acolytes could be bonded theoretically but were not by tradition. He realized that it was purely culture, there was no impediment otherwise. It had been done in times of old, the times that the rebels aimed to reinstate. Soval steepled his figers on his desk, looking at the younger man. "What is the reason for you telling me?" he finally asked.

"T'Agad has chosen her life away from the beliefs I hold dear. I considered a future without her and a future without what I was hoping to achieve. I realize that beliefs will not greet me in the morning nor share my couch at night. The logical choice is to follow her path."

Soval eyed the youth silently, considering. This was the first and only rebel other than T'Agad who had been willing to repudiate his beliefs. "What will you do if you need to defend against your comrades?" he asked. If Poryk was an ally, that would make three possible defenders against twelve rebels. The odds were improving.

"Once I commit, my comrades are no longer. Whatever path I take, my shield and my sword shall follow." Soval recognized the old oath to protect and defend. Once Poryk pledged allegiance, he'd be done with the rebels.

Soval rose from his desk and walked over to him, baring his forearms. Poryk did the same and the two men stood facing each other in the small space. Soval's shoulder twinged as he unclasped the soft cast, Phox had said another fortnight.

"Is the word yours?" Soval presented his forearms.

"The word is mine." Poryk met Soval's forearms him with his.

Soval sensed the psionic truth of Poryk's statement. He took a step back, nodding. The odds had improved. "Are others weighing their future?" He asked. The odds could stand to improve further.

"Spivak is bound as a healer. The others are not to be swayed. Jivak is now our leader."

Soval considered for a few moments. So Spivak was only with the rebels out of a sense of duty. Probabilities were that he too would refrain from helping one side or the other. There were now only eleven rebels dedicated to the cause. He looked up at Poryk again. "Have you talked to T'Agad?" then slowly realizing, "That is the reason you approached me."

Poryk looked anguished, though his features hadn't changed. " T'Agad will not bond with me without proof I am no longer with the rebels. Leaving the group openly would be deadly but once I'm on Vulcan I can get protection from the authorities. I need a _pe'le'ut'el_ to approach her and plead my case." Soval understood that T'Agad had been safe from retribution because of her semi-sacred status as a would-be acolyte. But acolyte or not, she was still an unbonded female and Poryk could not approach her directly with plans for their future. A chaperone was required and Soval would fulfill the role.

He had a vision of a decision tree that had sprouted multiple new branches. The odds were quickly realigning themselves towards possible positive outcomes. He softly patted the desk with his finger. "I will talk to T'Agad and you will remain with the rebels. Outwardly. This is how I want you to behave." He gestured to the couch by his desk, waiting for Poryk to be seated. They had much to prepare.

xxx

 _ **Archer**_

"What do you mean, T'Pol is talking to the tribe on behalf of Vulcan. She's a Starfleet officer!" Toussaint was visibly annoyed. He was having enough trouble with this whole rebel thing without his people throwing confusion into the mix.

Archer had to bite down on what first came to his mind. He went for the second thought. "I'm sure she'll be as interested as I am to hear it, because right now all we're told is that Starfleet can't reinstate her." Forget it, he needed to vent. "This is insane! My First Officer is on my ship and I have to run things as if she weren't there. And may I remind you she's also my Science Officer. I need her!"

Toussaint was looking at his desk, fidgeting over some padds as he realized the quandary everyone was in. He finally looked up at Archer. "I wish I could help but my hands are tied. I would take the rebels to Vulcan myself but T'Pau's not cooperating and it's slowed down all assignments dealing with Vulcan personnel. Perhaps if we were talking about a less sensitive position or someone that was not so close to Vulcan's center of power... But this would be too visible, it will never fly."

"How visible can it be? We're far out in I'Shlin space, an area so far unexplored -"

"- with Ambassador Soval on board, yes, I see how that wouldn't be visible." Toussaint cut him off. He leaned forward. "Let me ask you, not to be repeated, can we trust her?"

Archer pushed back from the desk, arms folded, narrowing his eyes at Toussaint. Did he really ask what he thought he did? He was getting beyond irritated. "Enough that if she were back in Starfleet, as she should have been on day one, she'd be talking to the tribe on behalf of the Federation. Right now she'll be the Vulcan envoy and I'll be the Federation envoy, and that's all Starfleet's doing." The two men glowered at each other across the screen and trillions of miles of space. Toussaint blinked first and cut off the communication.


	24. The Forest 24 - The Letter

_**The Forest**_

Elderweiss felt the disturbance in the air. She stood up, all senses awake. The prickling sensation was unexpected but not unknown, though she could not remember where she knew it from. A column of air started shivering in the cool of the morning. Elderweiss watched it with interest, while the tribe's guards ran over, spear at the ready. Her hand quickly closed over Lidlbeut's hand, imparting a message to be still, to stay alert, and to look around. The beam of light shimmered, consolidated, separated, shimmered again, and solidified into several distinct beings.

Lidlbeut could only stare at the apparitions in front of her. The woman, she knew right away in spite of the strange garments. That was her mentor and her friend. The beings at her side were nothing she had seen before, slightly similar to T'Pol but with rounded ears instead.

She saw at a glance that T'Pol's hands were no longer bleeding. Elderweiss got up from her seat on the old stump. The two aliens next to T'Pol raised short guns in return and Elderweiss stopped, eyeing them through her white eyes, trying to sense Sighting in them. She looked from T'Pol to the aliens and back, noting the guns that were drawn.

Archer looked at the small graceful alien with gold eyes and the gnarled one mottled with white. The oldest held the other's wrist. The youth's eyes grew wide, then returned to normal. There was a palpable sense that a communication was taking place that they were not part of.

The oldest I'Shlin spoke. "It's good to see you, T'Pol. Who are those beings that stand here with you?"

"These are my Captain and our chief of security. We came to talk with thee," she turned to Lidlbeut, "and your disciple. We have events to share from the world outside."

Elderweiss turned to T'Pol. "I have seen them in your thoughts. They are not one of us, they do not have Sighting." She eyed T'Pol suspiciously. "Did you come to kill us?"

Members of the tribe had gathered around the party and a couple stepped forward menacingly when Elderweiss spoke. Reed and Archer raised their phasers. T'Pol reached out with a hand, signaling all motion to end. "These are my crewmates and my friends. We come in peace." Elderweiss' ears flattened on her head while her eyes opened wide. "But they do not have Sighting." She and Lidlbeut stood frozen in place, trying to reconcile eons of knowledge with the sight before their eyes.

"My people, the Vulcans, have Sighting but the people of my crew, Humans, do not. Still we serve together." The notion was obviously beyond Elderweiss' comprehension. Her eyes went from Reed to T'Pol to Archer back to T'Pol and back to Reed. T'Pol went on. "My people too would like to meet you. They bring supplies for you and the tribe." Behind her a second pillar of light shimmered, then solidified into more aliens looking like T'Pol. Behind them were boxes of all sizes.

"What is this?" Elderweiss's tone was imperious, hiding her concern. Her eyes went from T'Pol and those looking like her to the others. Were the ears connected to Sighting? She sensed these were friends, she wasn't sure about the others.

"Vulcan and Earth, where Humans are from, are part of the Federation of Planets" T'Pol explained, "a friendly alliance of alien worlds. We have talked to the I'Shlins without Sighting, the ones in charge of the hunt, and we are coming to you with a proposal." She looked around at the tribe. "One that would allow you to build your own civilization."

xxx

 _ **Vulcan**_

Minister Sphelt walked around the large concentric desk that seated the members of the Council, saluting each of them in turn as he kept speaking. "The rebels that attacked Feurata and those that were geared to attack during the Turok festival," abbreviating names was seldom done on Vulcan and this was Sphelt's way of expressing T'Pau's dislike of anything non-Surak, "are two different factions, unknown and unaware of each other but under the direction of a single handler somewhere in Romulan Space. We believe the same handler also manages other terrorist organizations on Vulcan and in Federation space."

Minister Kuvak spoke from his seat. "Are you taking dispositions towards finding the handler?"

Sphelt inclined his head in acknowledgement. "That is part of the plan."

Kuvak was not done. "The logical step would be to interrogate the rebels. I understand the Federation is refusing to hand them over."

"Not so much a refusal, but a request that certain conditions be met prior to their extradition."

Kuvak snorted. "Conditions? We would let Humans dictate our internal affairs?!" He looked around the Council to draw them into his sense of indignation.

"They want assurances their lives won't be at risk. The inconvenience is minor at best." T'Pau interceded.

"Their lives won't be at risk." Kuvak emphatically declared.

"What about their minds?" That was Minister Thetan. The entire council nodded in appreciation of the difference.

Kuvak turned to her. "What happens to the rebels is not a concern of the Federation. They're interfering with our sovereign jurisdiction."

"The Federation is not asking for more than we already provide." T'Pau talked over the budding argument, bringing the Council back to civilized restraint. "The point of who currently has the rebels is currently moot. The Nahr can no longer bring them back to Vulcan. The Federation Starship Enterprise will take them back to Federation space. It gives all time to reach an understanding about their next station."

Sphelt was eyeing Kuvak narrowly. He didn't think he was the traitor, not when he had assisted T'Pau against V'Las. But the guilty were often the unexpected. He put the thought aside and addressed Thetan in turn. "It is dubious that the information the rebels have is of much use, their minds are not at risk. Even if they were to provide a name, the handler is the one who has the full roster of operatives, and he is not in our custody."

"On the basis that the name of the handler is information of limited use and easily obtained, could we send an agent to Romulan Space and extract the roster directly from the source?" Minister Volvic was seldom heard during chamber meetings but when he spoke, the Council listened.

T'Pau saw from the corner of her eye her vasoconstriction-challenged head of security turn green at the tips of his ears. Sphelt must have realized something that was still hidden from the others. She went on with the meeting as if nothing happened. The trap had been laid. Only the Council knew that Enterprise was bringing the rebels back.

It was time to reach out to Starfleet and lay the next prong.

xxx

 _ **Enterprise**_

"We might as well paint a bull's eye on the hull."

Toussaint eyed Archer coldly. Perhaps there was a reason why most officers on Enterprise had a reputation as smart-asses. He sighed, tired of fighting with the Captain. "It's not like there's much choice. The Nahr has trouble enough fitting another two hundred bodies, plus supplies. Even if they could take the rebels, they're going off to find a colony for the I'Shlins. Sticking with their own, it seems."

Archer narrowed his eyes at Toussaint. He didn't like that remark. "Those with Sighting have been decimated for hundreds of years, it's the least they can do. I know there's no choice. We'll keep the rebels. Taking them back to Vulcan, I guess?"

"No, not to Vulcan. T'Pau's government is still not cooperating." Archer refrained from rolling his eyes. He could have told Toussaint so from the very beginning. "You're going back to the Ceplephus Quadrant. By the time you get there, hopefully everyone will have come back to their senses, we'll have a solution that satisfies the Vulcans and us. Or the Brolains." He looked ruefully at Archer. "The Federation is being inundated with complaints, including from Starfleet. They never quite realized how many Vulcan citizens are integral to the proper functioning of their institutions."

"What about T'Pol?" Archer didn't want to be rude, but there was only one Vulcan citizen he truly cared about.

"The Federation is starting to come back to their senses but not to that extent. In any case with her it's a little bit more complicated. You have Ambassador Soval and the rebels loose on your ship, they afraid to look as if they're giving the store away."

Archer glared at Toussaint. "The rebels are far from loose on the ship. They're under constant guard and limited to their quarters and the mess hall. In any case Enterprise is not a prison ship, the brig is not big enough. And I don't know what that has to do with T'Pol anyway." He took a deep breath. "We're in the middle of an unknown sector of space with a dozen dangerous terrorists on board and I'm one crewmember and two positions short. If there's a time when I need an exec and a science officer, this is it."

"Why, it's not like you're doing any exploring."

"Because," Archer exhaled slowly through his nose, "there's nobody I trust more in a dangerous situation. In case I didn't make myself clear, we're in a vulnerable position with threats on the outside and on the inside. It will take us over four weeks to get back to Ceplephus space at warp five. That's a long time to be vulnerable."

Toussaint shook his head again. "Keep the rebels locked up and you won't be so vulnerable. As for T'Pol, my hands are tied. I'll bring it up with the Federation, perhaps they'll make an exception. Toussaint out." He shut off the com.

Archer stood staring at the blank screen. Keep the rebels locked up, right. Give them oodles of time to caucus and put their minds together. At least Soval always had them broken down in two's and three's, busy on something or another.

He knew better than to be optimistic about the outcome of Toussaint's conversation with the Federation. He would have to let T'Pol know.

xxx

 _ **The Forest**_

Complete mayhem greeted Archer when he materialized on the planet. Groups of Vulcans were scattered among the I'Shlins, doing an inventory of people and equipment. Nervous I'Shlin were overseeing the activity, obviously stressed and jumpy. The I'Shlin Council had insisted on having guards monitor the orderly removal of the tribe, an unnecessary ordeal for the guards. Archer couldn't help notice that neither Tyrmleadr nor any council member were present. Courage was easier from a distance.

Over the crowd, he spotted Elderweiss standing on her stump and made his way over. T'Pol was at her side with the small I'Shlin, he understood she was Elderweiss's disciple and had been T'Pol's pupil. T'Pol's Vulcan robes reminded him that she still had no standing with Starfleet, bringing a scowl to his face.

He walked over, clearing his throat in anticipation of what he was going to say, when Captain T'Mora suddenly appeared at his side. "Captain Archer, a word with you if you please." Archer looked over at T'Pol, saw that she had seen him, figured she had probably read in his face and demeanor the failure of his last pleading with Starfleet. Unless she could directly read his thoughts, being among the powerful I'Shlin telepaths made him a little paranoid about it.

He stepped further into the surrounding forest, raising his collar against the constant drizzle. The Vulcans had discrete nose filters to prevent too much vapor from reaching their lungs lest the Nahr turn into a hospital ship. T'Mora blinked a couple of times. Archer saw that her eyes were not as dark as he had thought, there were speckles of gold in them. He waited for her to start talking, she was the one who had made the request.

As she spoke his eyes kept getting wider and wider. When she was done he passed a hand through his hair. There was no point asking the Vulcans what had gotten into them that they brought the Vulcan transport on board, but there was no debating they couldn't leave their technology in orbit of an alien species. Or that they needed every last square inch of space to house the tribe and the necessary supplies. "I'll have to talk to my Chief Engineer," he finally said, "check if we have the space in our holds and if we can handle the extra weight."

T'Mora nodded. "The other option would be to leave part of the tribe behind to wait until we've found a suitable planet and then come back retrieve them."

Archer frowned. "Sounds like the best option is for us to load the transport. I'll make sure my Chief Engineer knows."

They walked in silence to where Elderweiss stood with Lidlbeut at her side. T'Mora turned to T'Pol, giving the taal. "We thank you for your help."

"I came to serve." Tpol gave a brief bow.

T'Mora addressed herself to Elderweiss. "We are almost done preparing the tribe's quarters aboard the Nahr. We shall depart in three days." Archer looked at her sharply, feeling like something'd been lost in translation, that he'd have to take the Vulcan transport whether he wanted to or not.

xxx

 _ **Vulcan Embassy on Enterprise**_

The messenger held himself ramrod straight, the security officer next to him trying his best to appear open and trusting. "Captain T'Mora asked that I deliver this to you." He handed Soval an envelope. "These are the summaries of Vulcan intelligence reports." Soval nodded, watching the security man unobtrusive glance. It didn't matter, these intelligence reports were already old, their secrets well vented or T'Mora would never have them publicly handled. The messenger gave the taal, made as if to turn around, then suddenly remembered something else. "I forget. She also asked me to give you these." He took out of his side split a transparent cellophane bag with a handful of shriveled nuts inside. "We had to release a number of specialty items from stasis and she remembered you favor the fruit of the a'jaruk." The messenger put the bag on an unoccupied space of the desk while Soval emptied the envelope, looking the padds over. Soval returned the taal and the man left along with the security guard. He would review the padds later that night.

* * *

Soval voice-locked the door and lowered the lights before going to his desk and activating the antintel routine. However brilliant Lieutenant Reed was, he doubted Enterprise was outfitted with the kind of listening devices that could overcome it. The a'jaruk nuts were in the small bag before him. This was where the information was being stored. Who had ever heard of a Vulcan messenger forgetting what he was supposed to deliver? The Humans' tendency to anthropomorphize had played into Vulcan's hands again.

He picked a nut, turning it over and letting his hand warm it. Nothing happened. He split the shell open and bit into the flesh, savoring the home-like taste. It had been months since he'd had a proper Vulcan meal. He did the same with the second fruit, also quickly dispatched. The third fruit was the one. Sensing his DNA, the nut started moving, the shell slowly opening and unfolding into a parchment-like letter.

Soval stared at the Vulcan writing, finding in the ornate cursive of the main capital letters the clue as to which decryption algorithm would be required. He pushed the nuts aside, forgotten, and laid the letter flat on his desk. The algorithm was one used in extreme cases. As with Vulcan letters of old, the position and respective size of the lead letters showed the star chart of the sector the letter was about. Each reading key would uncover yet another layer.

At the tenth reading, Soval's eyebrows flew to his head. A traitor on the Council and V'Las aligned with the Romulans. The news was both surprising and disturbing. At the thirteenth reading, the eyebrows came together in a scowl. At the fifteenth reading, Sovak's head jerked up from the page. He sat a few more moments, mulling over the information and his directives, then applied his thumb to the center of the fifth line. The letter self-consumed without flames, a scattering of fine ashes the only remaining trace of its message, quickly collected and dealth with. There was more, another piece critical to the mission, to be found in the remaining fruit. Finally another nut opened, the chip no bigger than a fingernail. He deftly inserted it into his hand-held and started reading.

Soval felt a dull thump in his lower right quadrant as his heart skipped a beat. He recognized that handwriting among all others. He got up from his desk, looking around for support, and sat heavily on the couch in his office, checking the date on the letter. How could it be, Steful had been dead thirty years already. He saw the signature, took the chip out, it was the right model and age, put the chip back in. He read the letter quickly, looking for any sign it was a fake. T'Pol would know... The thought stopped him. T'Pol. How was he going to tell her that he was reading a fairly recent letter from her long deceased father. Should he tell her? He started pacing his office, considering.

How convenient for the letter to timely re-surface. He felt cold rage at the overt manipulation though it was logical that concerns of state should prevail. The ministry of security knew what they had started but not the consequences. Nobody did. The decision tree had acquired some ugly branches. Steful being in Romulans space explained so many things. What was he going to tell to his daughter? Would having known this before have tipped her away from service, to follow a path similar to the rebels? He was oath-bound to protect her. And he was oath-bound to protect Vulcan. What would he say to his old friend if he ever met him again? That his official capacity superceded his individual loyalty? Perhaps he shouldn't tell her.

But this was not the way of Surak. The new path required complete and utter honesty. There was no choice but to tell her. As to how the events unfolded after, it would be as it should be.

He looked at the handheld, trying to see the letter through the emotions that disturbed his soul. He let it fall by his side, getting up wobbily from the couch. He needed to meditate. Or engage in a fight to the death. Meditation would be preferable. How was he going to tell Steful's daughter?'


	25. The Forest 25 - The Farewell

xxx

 ** _T'Pol_**

Trip had been waiting a long time, as Soval had asked him. He wasn't sure what was going on or why the ambassador needed to see T'Pol urgently, even less why Soval had asked him to wait outside in case he were needed. He couldn't hear a sound coming from inside, not that he'd tried to listen, though in all honesty he had, but usually voices carried easily in the confines of the ship. Except this time. So he waited. He thought about whistling but it would have felt vaguely foolish.

The anguish that suddenly seized his mind was unalike any he'd ever felt, he could swear the corridor moved, the ship canted at an angle, even while his engineering mind knew nothing had budged. A cold breeze came blowing down the corridor, a storm, no a tempest, and in the middle of it an inhuman wail, a shriek of absolute anguish. He didn't even have time to think, he was already through the door, that was T'Pol calling.

Soval turned and looked at him but didn't object, he was hovering over T'Pol, seated on the couch, looking white and trembling. There was a handheld shaking in her hands, so hard it fell to he ground. "How can this be?" Her voice was a whisper.

"What happened?!" Trip looked at Soval. The ambassador straightened up, looking down at T'Pol. "It is for her to decide what to tell you."

T'Pol skin had gone from white to green, her eyes like saucers in her face, she was shaking like a leaf. Trip sat on he couch next to her, grabbing her hands, anything to try and calm her. "What is it?" He entreated. She turned liquid eyes at him, he thought perhaps she was about to cry and that freaked him out more than anything. "A letter. From my father." She looked up at Soval, turning white again, still shaking.

"Your father died when you were sixteen..." Trip started, offering one of the few facts he thought he knew. She must have found a letter he wrote before he died. He certainly could understand what effect that would have on her. "Oh, honey, I'm sorry." The look between T'Pol and Soval told him that perhaps he hadn't gotten it right. T'Pol shook her head. "My father died when I was fifteen. He wrote this letter when I turned thirty-fifth."

The words of comfort that Trip was going to offer died in his throat. Now he knew his math, and there was no mathematical universe in which that was possible, other than time travel and some well-known paradoxes. If he died when she was fifteen, how could he be alive when she was thirty-five? Perhaps they'd misread the date.

Trip picked up the handheld from the floor, looked at the letter. Of course, he should have remembered, the Vulcan characters didn't mean much to him. Then the letters started switching, becoming blurry but readable Standard characters. He realized that T'Pol was helping him read through the bond.

There was no mistaking the date, it was written in both numbers and letters, both the scientific and Vulcan dates. Trip quickly scanned the contents, it was a letter from a father to his child on the eve of a coming of age birthday. He would have to ask T'Pol what it was about turning thirty-five. In the meantime, there was no question it had been written long after her father's death.

Trip looked up flabbergasted at Soval. "Perhaps he pre-wrote it?" He hazarded, looking for rational explanations. Soval squashed that thought. "The chip he wrote it on didn't exist at the time of his death."

Unless it was written by an impostor. "Are you sure your father wrote it?" He asked.

T'Pol's skin now had a greenish cast. Trip eyed her with some concern. "My father wrote it. Ever since I could speak he taught me a code word so that I would always know when correspondence came from him." She caught the look that passed between Trip and Soval. "Do you find it surprising?" Her voice was soft, hesitant.

Trip looked at Soval for support then realized he was on his own with this. "I don't know quite how to say this, but that's not something fathers usually teach their daughters or their sons."

He stared at the handheld. If the terms of a mathematical equation were right, then the solution must be right, even if it seemed to be wrong. The letter had been written by her father, and it had been written thirty years before. That meant that T'Pol's father was... not... dead. As to why the code word... He looked up at Soval. "Where do you think he is?" he asked.

"His name was... is... Steful" interjected T'Pol.

Soval was looking in the distance. "We believe Steful is in Romulan space." Then seeing Trip's shocked expression and T'Pol renewed trembling. "There are many reasons why he would have gone there." He turned to T'Pol. "We have learned that V'Las was working with the Romulans, to what end we do not know. Your father may have been a Vulcan agent in Romulan space, or he may have been fleeing the V'Las regime and faked his own death. We do not know."

T'Pol was too emotionally overwrought to think logically through this but Trip was not. "But how come you found the letter just now?" he asked.

Soval seemed troubled, Trip had a sense there was something he was not saying. He waited. Finally, Soval put his hands behind his back. "The information was recently declassified. Apparently the missive had been intercepted by the V'Las regime and was in the ministry of security files. They were holding it." The thought crossed Soval's mind that they were holding it for exactly the end it was being used to. Political regimes might change, but their methods seldom varied. "It is all presumptions." He added. "The letter was sent during the seventh hundred anniversary of the Yel Shen. Steful must have sent the letter trusting it would go unnoticed among millions of others. Obviously that didn't happen."

Trip heard a rushing sound in his ears. He looked over at T'Pol who had turned white again. "Should we call Phlox?"

She looked up at Soval who looked back at her. "It is your choice." She nodded at Trip. "Yes, please call him."

xxx

 _ **Soval**_

"You need to lie down. Your blood pressure is all over the place." The Denobulan gently but firmly brought T'Pol to a recline, checking her vitals until he was satisfied. He injected a hypo and stepped aside to where he could monitor her without being in the way. T'Pol had briefly enlightened him and he was mulling over the discovery. What affected any of the crew affected him as well.

Soval was observing the scene, noting that T'Pol's controls were insufficient to handle traumatic events. This could lead to disastrous consequences. He understood T'Pau's choice but doubted her wisdom. Not in this particular situation. And yet he had no choice but to set things in motion. From this point on, there were a myriad potential futures, a constellation, each dependent on every gesture and every step before. In the end, the future that took place was the one that was destined to happen.

He had not shown his surprise when T'Pol had requested Phlox and now watching the doctor fussing over her and Captain Archer, whom she had also called, standing tight-lipped and straight-backed in silent empathy, he realized that these people were her family. With Steful and T'Les gone and no siblings or other close relatives, having stepped away from the expected path to join first the stars and then the Humans, her position within her clan was hardly redeemed by her accomplishments. Such were Vulcans. T'Pol would be in lonely self-exile without these people.

He would be hard-pressed to fault her, he who had grown fond enough of Humans to spend half a lifetime in their chaotic embrace.

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

They were back in her quarters, Trip hesitant, T'Pol looking like she'd been trampled by a herd of elephants. "Are you okay?" He asked for the umpteenth time.

She simply nodded, not even granting him the favor of an irritated eyebrow. "I need to meditate."

"Of course, let me know if you need anything. I don't think you want dinner?" T'Pol just shook her head, an uncharacteristic response. Phlox had said to expect she'd be shell-shocked, just go with the flow. Archer had given him leave to take care of her first, he actually wouldn't be disappointed if the Nahr had to wait another day to find out if the Vulcan transport could fit on Enterprise.

T'Pol meditated for half the night and when she crawled into bed, chilled from so many hours immobile, Trip gathered her in his arms, kissing her temple, wishing he could make it all better. "D'you want to talk?" He sleepily said, knowing he would be wide alert as soon as she accepted. There was no answer. On a hunch, he followed up. "Tell me about your father."

That night he learned about Steful. There was little to say, other than a child's love for her father, dead before she could know him as an adult. There was too much to say, a lifetime would not have been enough.

xxx

 _ **Archer**_

"My ship is being used as bait?" Archer was starting to think Starfleet personally had it in for him. He turned to look at Reed, who had grown strangely pink with the effort to keep from boiling over at Harris.

The commander of Section 31 sighed, reached over to grab a stick, which he proceeded to chew. Archer gave Reed a meaningful look. The head of the most powerful agency in Starfleet, busy eating a candy stick? Reed's eye-roll let him know it was not the first time.

Harris tried his best to project a benevolent smile, except Archer was an ace at this kind of deceit. He realized it was getting him nowhere, floundered, then adopted the stern and serious demeanor that best fit his words. "I wouldn't put it quite that way..."

 _'and which way would you put it exactly'_ thought Reed, though he didn't say it.

"We don't know what's going to happen," Harris went on. "The hope is that the other side will capitalize on the situation and overplay their hand."

"Meaning you're using my ship as bait." Archer's tone was no-nonsense.

Harris positively purred. "Remember, Captain, the only thing of interest on your ship, as far as these people go, are the rebels. We do expect attempts will be made at contacting them, possibly freeing them. All communications, everything concerning your ship, is subject to the highest scrutiny level and we'll be aware of it well before it happens." Harris looked at Reed. "Our communication is secure?"

"I activated the encryption routine you sent us." For good measure, Reed had also initiated the usual antitel measures, including virtual and physical scramblers. Anybody trying to listen in would have to go through five layers of encryption, the conversation wouldn't last long enough.

Harris nodded his approval. "What I am going to tell you is subject to the highest level of confidentiality. Nobody beyond the two of you can know. The Vulcans have an agent among the rebels. We do not know who it is and even if we did, I couldn't tell you. But we do want the Romulans to come in contact with the rebels, that's our only chance at finding out who they control in the Federation. Once they do, his job will be to find that information." He looked at both men in turn. "Now, here is what I need you to do."

"Before we start, what about my Science Officer?" Archer had a bone to pick with Starfleet, and he was going to let them know it at every turn. On the screen, a smile quickly went over Harris' face, as if Archer had said something funny. Archer narrowed his eyes at him.

Harris turned somber, he eyed the Starfleet officers, wondering how well what he had to tell them was going to go over. He had a feeling it wouldn't. "Your Science Officer..." he stopped himself, "former Science Officer. Starfleet won't be able to reinstate her. She's a security risk."

"What?!" Archer was back to being so angry he could have spewed flames.

Harris raised both hands in visual entreaty. "Hear me out, Captain."

Archer threw a sidelong glance at Reed. He hoped it didn't have to do with T'Pol's father, he had told her it didn't change a thing where he was concerned, he hadn't really thought in terms of Starfleet. He waited for what came next, a scowl on his face.

The scowl hadn't left his face when Harris finished speaking. "You realize what you're asking me to do..." He finally said. Archer looked at Reed, knowing already there would be no help there. He didn't like what Section 31 was planning, it was all a web of lies and deceit.

xxx

 ** _T'Agad's Story_**

"You requested my presence?" Poryk was at the door.

"I did." Soval got up from his desk and signaled for Poryk to come in. They stood facing each other. "I have approached T'Agad."

"She has rendered her decision?"

"She indicated that she cannot bond with you so long as you are associated with the rebels. She will not bond with anyone who might be called upon to take another's life."

Poryk swallowed. "She should have been told I was reneging these beliefs."

"T'Agad would not consider the possibility. As she expressed it, the singular reality is that you are part of the rebel group, and that reality leads her to a single negative option. If that reality were to change, her decision would change accordingly."

"And how do you propose I let her know reality has changed when I am with the group on your command and order? She should have been told the truth." Poryk made an effort at keeping his voice level.

Soval walked back to his desk. "T'Agad is bound by her upcoming vows to never waver from the truth. If you reveal your status she will have no choice but to tell anyone who asks her." Unfortunately she did not know the name of the rebel handler in Romulan Space. Soval had already asked her.

Poryk was deflated. Soval looked at the young man, decided to share the rest of the exchange. "She indicated that if there comes a time when you have renounced any association with the rebels and atoned for the lives you've taken, she would not object if you were to come to her directly, without the benefit of a pe'le'u'tel."

Poryk's inclined his head in acknowledgement, his heart beating a little faster. Allowing him to propose was a sign of favor. Things were not lost after all.

Soval gauged the time was right to expand on their objective. "There have been developments." He started. "Let me take you through the next part of the plan."

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

He found T'Pol in the mess hall, seated at a table with some of the rebels. The stilled conversation was what passed for animated on Vulcan. Trip saw she was wearing her traditional robes and he winced internally. In the two days since she learned that her father may still be alive she had started wearing her robes daily and was spending more and more time with the rebels, as if somehow they were a path to him through their access to Romulan space. He didn't like it. Not at all. If she had talked to the tribe in the name of all Vulcan what was she doing fraternizing with a bunch of terrorists bent on destroying it? He found himself wishing Archer'd had them confined to the brig, no matter Soval's say-so.

T'Pol had sensed him. She got up, excused herself and walked over. "You are upset." Trip was still not very proficient at blocking the bond.

He could have denied it but the bond was a telltale supreme. "Not to belabor the point but these are wanted criminals you're hanging out with."

T'Pol cocked her head at him. "That point is not in dispute. But their crimes were committed in pursuit of different ideals. It behooves us to understand how they were brought to such extremes and possibly deflect future similar events."

Trip's sense of relief was shallow. He rolled his tongue inside his cheek. T'Pol had a tendency to get entirely absorbed in whatever subject attracted her scientific curiosity. He couldn't help think back to the v'tosh ka'tur and how she'd ended up spending every damn minute of her time on that ship with those rebels. He squinted at the table she'd left. Was there another Tolaris in their midst? If any of them was going to hurt her they'd have to go through him first. He saw Spivac looking at him. The man was a healer, Trip felt somewhat safer about him. He turned back to T'Pol.

"I'm sure that's something their lawyers will do. And Vulcan's government. You're neither of those things. Plus we have that whole mess with Starfleet and it may not look good to have you seen hanging out with these criminals." That earned him a raised eyebrow and he brought his hand up before he could be exposed to yet another lecture on logic. "I know Vulcans are not wired the same, but for Humans perception is reality."

"There is no truth but reality." Trip nodded, _yes, that's where Vulcans and humans differed, all right_. "And I shall not change my behavior on pretext of potential prejudice." T'Pol added. Trip sighed. _And that's where they were the same. Stubborn and pig-headed_.

"I really wish you'd reconsider." He said. All he could do was ask. At least for the time being. He could see this would eventually lead to trouble.

"I am not doing this because of my father." T'Pol replied softly.

Trip looked up in surprise. He blushed, cleared his throat. "Am I that obvious?"

"Obviously." She huffed, then catching the whiff of ionic fumes. "Are you still on duty?"

"Yes, we figured the Vulcan transport can fit in Shuttlebay Two, but it's going to be a tight fit. We have to take everything out that's not fixed to the ship." Trip thought back to the collective shock around the bridge when they realized the Nahr had picked up the large vessel. He wasn't sure if it was a sign of Vulcan fastidiousness in cleaning up after themselves or if it was that they didn't want any of their technology loose in an unknown sector of space. "And most of it is scientific equipment and samples we" he really should have said 'you' "collected over the years. I need your approval."

"I am not the science officer."

Trip had expected the response. "But you were and since no successor has been named, you still get to sign. I checked regulations. I also asked your team but they all said you were the one who should do it."

Trip proferred a padd. T'Pol mechanically applied her thumbprint and an error message flashed "Unidentified. Authorization denied." Trip could feel her irritation through the bond. She shot a glance at him and he extracted its stylus from the padd, handing it to her.

He looked on in fascination as she neatly signed her name. He loved to see how she deftly drew the musical characters. He chuckled. "I didn't know you were a southpaw." That earned him the grandmother of nonplussed looks. He chuckled again. "You write with your left hand. That's what they used to call left-handed people on Earth."

T'Pol looked at the pen in her hand then back up at Trip. "Vulcans are ambidextrous. I learned to write from my father, he held the pen in that hand." Silence fell over them, rife with loss and questions.

Trip broke it first, looking for something to say that wouldn't weigh down the conversation. "I just thought that was interesting." She finished writing her full name, Trip following the pen as it ran on the paper. There was a sensuality to how she formed the letters that was mesmerizing. T'Pol raised an eyebrow at him as some of his feelings bled over the edge. She passed her tongue on her lip and Trip felt a burst of heat down below. He swallowed hard. "I could go to our quarters and take a shower." Their eyes locked.

"I shall go with you." It would be illogical to squander the opportunities that arose from not being employed.

xxx

 _ **Reed**_

Reed had the mind of a bloodhound, always sifting his environment for clues about where danger laid or might have lain. The engineer was in a surprisingly good mood after having kept them waiting for a half-hour . He wordlessly collected clues about Trip while Hesse was finishing catching him up on how they were going to get the transport into the hold. It was four times the size of the usual shuttles and would be dwarfing everything else.

Clue number one: Trip said he had rushed to his quarters to take a shower but his hair was drier than it should have been if he had come straight from a quick shower. Based on forensic learning, by about a half hour.

Trip handed him the padd with the signed authorization. Reed checked the signature, asked "So you got T'Pol to sign?"

"Yes, she was in the mess hall and she signed the order." Trip replied.

Clue number two: the chief engineer had said he was starving, was obviously in a hurry to hit the mess hall, but he had already been in the mess hall with plenty opportunity to eat. If he'd eaten first, he would not be hungry and his hair would be wet. So he didn't eat, took a shower, and then came down to Shuttlebay Two a half-hour late.

Clue number three: T'Pol had been in the mess hall. That explained the cheerful mood. There was no danger in sight. Reed could relax.

When Hesse was done, Trip turned to Malcolm. "And you're sure this thing will be secure?" He didn't want anything to happen. If anything happened, his teams would be the one doing the clean-up, as usual. There were only so many times he felt like reconstructing parts of Enterprise.

"As secure as can be. We agreed with the Vulcans to layer our security system over theirs, so that thing will be doubly secure. First they'll have to break our code, and then that of the Vulcans."

Trip nodded. It sounded good even though he couldn't tell if it was sound and Reed had his ramrod-straight on, as if he minded the question. He looked at the science containers that would soon be relocated, imagining the Vulcan goliath that would take their place.

xxx

 _ **Archer**_

"Lay in the course, Ensign Mayweather."

Enterprise gracefully swept up and away from the Nahr, before doubling back to dip underneath it, then, once she was safely away, going to warp, the signature trail from her engines leaving a curlicue behind.

The Nahr looked the same as it always did, nobody could have told it was filled to the gills with I'Shlin refugees who would soon be on their way to find a place to call their own. Archer found that he was grateful for Vulcan sober efficiency. The farewells had been modest, reserved, enough for T'Pol and Lidlbeut and Elderweiss to wish each other well and long life, for Archer and T'Mora to talk shop - or ship - some more. And he was still fascinated by the gold specks in her eyes.

"Aft scanners." He called.

As the planet grew smaller in their sights, the Nahr an almost invisible speck against it, Archer couldn't help the feeling of unease that was growing within him. Enterprise was leaving the safety of the planet, the protective presence of the Nahr and would be out alone in deep space for weeks, with bait on board and blood-smelling hounds somewhere out there, ready to spring. Even if he could have told Harris to forget it, that he wouldn't go along with Section 31's little scheme, truth was there was no choice, someone had to bring the rebels back to Federation space.

He swiveled his chair towards Reed and the two men exchanged a knowing glance.

The game was afoot.

And they were the prey.


	26. The Forest 26 - The Attack

Xxx

 _ **Archer**_

"Travis! Do you see that? What is it?" Travis looked intently at the screen, trying to see what it was Archer was pointing to. He finally saw light reflecting on an odd-shaped object at the edge of the warp field. He focused the scanners on what turned out to be a jagged piece of an asteroid. He looked to Archer hesitantly.

"Good, just keep going." Archer settled back in his chair. Far from him to make Travis anxious but he was on pins and needles, waiting for something to happen and wishing it did. Or rather wishing he didn't, except he was not naive enough to think fortune would favor him much longer. They had already been underway for a few weeks.

"How far to Ceplephus quadrant?"

"If we maintain top speed, another ten days, sir."

Archer frowned. "I thought we were a week away?"

"We were already out of Ceplephus sector when we went to the I'Shlin planet, Captain, that's why it didn't take as long. On a straight line we're only six days away, but we have to go around Romulans space."

Archer nodded, his thoughts on the dangers lurking all around. He turned to Reed. "Any threats you can detect?"

If the security officer was concerned, he didn't let on. "Nothing, Captain. Everything is tranquil on the border."

xxx

 _ **Hoshi**_

T'Pol was going native. It struck Hoshi that there was perhaps no better way to define what was happening with their first officer. If there were Vulcan aboard, she was outVulcanning them all. She didn't know what hold the rebels had on her or what was so interesting in the views they held, but T'Pol was suspended to their every gesture and word.

Hoshi saw Trip come into the mess hall and felt sorry for him. It was painfully obvious T'Pol's loyalties were shifting. She just hoped they got back to Federation quickly. Once they unloaded the rebels and T'Pol was no longer under their influence, things would go back to normal, she was certain.

Almost certain.

In the meantime, T'Pol was with the rebels morning and night, talking with them, eating with them, going wherever they went now that Archer had relaxed the parameters and allowed some physical outlet.

They were not a bad bunch, overall. Polite and reserved, using archaic forms of language which delighted Hoshi to the tip of her toes. She too had started talking to them, though careful to do so at times when Archer and Malcolm were certain not to be around. She wasn't doing anything wrong and didn't feel bad about improving her grasp of Vulcan forms and syntax, she just knew they wouldn't like it very much if they saw her openly doing so.

Spivac has just come into the mess hall on Trip's heels. That would have been fine except that next to him was T'Pol. Hoshi saw the furious look that flashed over the engineer's features. She felt bad all anew. Not that there was any attraction between T'Pol and the Vulcan, she would have known, but it was so obvious it mattered to Trip. She felt like taking T'Pol aside and reading her the riot act about honoring her bondmate's wishes and not being such a selfish bitch.

Hoshi stopped in stupefaction, she had never openly thought this. But as she mulled about it and carefully sifted through her feelings, she realized that' was exactly what she thought of T'Pol's behavior. Perhaps Starfleet was not exactly stellar in this whole thing, but neither was her crewmate. She decided then and there that she would find a way to have a word with her friend. Her former friend. Whether she was till one afterwards would depend how she reacted.

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

Spivac sensed the engineer's anger as soon as he stepped into the mess hall. He took a step away from T'Pol. The Human should accept the obvious, his bondmate was close to espousing the rebel cause. This was as it should be.

Trip was walking towards them, glowering. "Where were you?" His tone was accusatory.

T'Pol blinked. "We were on the observation deck."

"You're aware that this is close to several areas of the ship that are restricted?" Trip was not masking his hostility.

Spivac inclined his head, putting his hands behind his back. He was well aware and that was precisely the reason they had gone. "The observation deck is not among those." He realized as soon as he said it that the question had not been addressed to him.

In response the engineer narrowed his eyes at him. It was obvious his anger was more deep-seated than would be warranted by a simple detour. "Please excuse us." His tone was cold. He turned his back on Spivac, targeting his anger at T'Pol.

Spivac could sense she was gearing up for a fight. That was fortunate. First, Starfleet refusing to reinstate her, now Trip refusing to understand her. The Humans were making this so much easier.

xxx

 _ **Soval**_

"Things are proceeding according to plan."

Soval nodded. He didn't need Poryk to say more. "Are all the rebels still as one with Jivak?"

"They will follow Jivak to his grave."

"What about Spivac?"

"He seems more circonspect but he remains committed to the cause."

"Any communication from the Romulans yet?"

Poryk looked at the ground. "I would not know. I am not on the communications committee." He reminded Soval. The rebels had been organized into independent cells of three people.

"Yes, yes, you are on the weapons committee. That will be convenient." Soval walked to the window and stood staring at the velvet of stars surrounding the warp field. Somewhere out there the Romulans were waiting. They should already have been in contact with the rebels.

The other alternative was that the rebels were working according to a predetermined plan. That would explan how Jivak could so fast organize his team into action.

It was like playing chess blindfolded without knowing which pieces would be called. Vulcan already had a couple of strong pieces in, waiting to be turned. Each additional one would increase the odds of success. They had to be ready to pounce on all openings.

Xxx

 _ **T'Pol**_

T'Pol got up from her meditation pillow, avoiding looking at the shelves bare of Trip's belongings. He had left her quarters, gone back to his place, ragefully ordering her to block the bond, he would do the same on his end though perhaps not as well. The divide between them kept growing wider. She put her hand on the coverlet where his body used to lay, night after night. There was something unsettling about the absence of what should have been there. This wasn't meant to be.

She trusted that eventually she would be able to let him know what had driven her, that there would come a day when he would understand why she had to go to the rebels. Now was not that day. First, she needed to go to Romulan space, perchance to meet her father. That was her mission.

She looked around her quarters again. Had she been Human, she would have known that Trip's absence made her feel lonely and cold. As she was a Vulcan, it was logical that the silence of the bond would be bothering her, resonating from her mind through her quarters. She was not to unblock the bond, ingrained behavior dictated not to go where she was not welcome. She was alone.

She stepped out of her quarters into the chilly corridor. She would go to the observation deck, perhaps somewhere among the stars laid the answer.

xxx

 _ **T'Agad Story**_

T'Agad turned from where she was meditating in front of the large windows. She didn't not need to expresss her accord. As an acolyte her time belonged to those who sought her help. T'Pol sat cross-legged next to her in a fluid motion. T'Agad inclined her shorn head in welcome.

T'Pol swallowed hard. "My father..." she didn't know what came next and it did not matter.

T'Agad started speaking, telling her of what she knew. T'Pol listened long into the night. Morning found them still seated. T'Pol got up and bowed to T'Agad. "I know what my path will be."

T'Agad looked at her. "Your path can be yours only, others' paths will not lead you to what you are looking for."

T'Pol stared at T'Agad "Yet you followed others."

T'Agad looked down at her hands for long minutes then looked up again. "The mistakes of my past belong to the past. I have my future to reflect on what those were."

"What about Poryk? His truth and your truth are no longer aligned."

"Poryk belongs to my past. Whether he shall be in my future is for him to decide."

"That is because you are not bonded." T'Pol tersely said. Decisions were uncomplicated without a bondmate. T'Agad may find that her future was otherwise circumscribed.

T'Agad looked up at T'Pol, kindness in her eyes. "Each one of us shall forge her own path."

xxx

 _ **Archer**_

They had been waiting so long and it happened so fast.

The two small Romulan birds of prey were crissing and crossing in front of Enterprise, unleashing salvos of liquid fire as they swooped by. Of course, it had to be the middle of the night. But Archer had been sleeping with only one eye closed these days, his mind was unfogged by sleep. He looked at the deadly ballet, trying to find an opening. More often than not Enterprise's fire went broad, missing the fleeting targets.

Archer turned to Reed. "Any way we can refine our aim?"

The security officer shook his head. "They're really fast. I don't know what they're trying to achieve, they're not powerful enough. And they don't seem to follow any kind of order."

A powerful jolt send Archer sprawling half over the arm of his chair, his teeth rattling. "What exactly are they doing?!" he exclaimed.

Travis had replaced the night pilot, was hanging to a console with one hand while trying to align the vectors with the other. He quickly looked up at the screen, wondering what the Captain was asking. They were firing at Enterprise, that's what.

Reed was more battle-hardened and understood Archer's shortcut. "They don't seem to want to destroy us." Another bold of phaser fire hit the ship, making him check the shields power. "More like they're playing with us." His return canon fire went far and wide from the mark.

Archer was halfway up off his seat. "It's a distraction! Travis! Activate the scanners!"

As if on cue, another four small birds of prey materialized out of deep space right below and behind Enterprise. "Travis, evasive action! Reed, report!" Archer was barking his orders. Two ships were not enough to make a dent, six were a sizeable threat.

The ship kept shuddering. The two ships in front were keeping their attack, delivering glancing blow after glancing blow. Reed returned fire, swearing under his breath as the other ships started focusing their fire on Enterprise's underside.

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

The red alert cut through his dreams like a high-powered chainsaw. Not that it mattered, he wasn't sleeping well these days, angry and hurt over his relationship with T'Pol. She had said Vulcans bonded for life and he hoped it didn't mean what it sounded like. Or things could get very complicated. Very complicated indeed. Not that he had any idea what he was going to do. He got dressed and ran to engineering, glad for the reprieve from his brooding.

As he hurried along he reflected there was a time when he would have stopped by her quarters to make sure she was ok. But not today. The rebels could see to her well being. She probably preferred it that way. No, not today.

The ship was shaking from all sides, taking somewhat of a beating but the engines were getting along fine. If enterprise could only lock onto the attackers they would soon be rid of the nuisance. Trip was reaching for the intercom when suddenly an alert blared, straight from the bridge. "Alert- another four attackers on the rear." That was Reed talking. The bridge crew had heir hands full.

Trip almost lost his balance as another volley hit, this time closer to Engineering. He grabbed the main console, looking at Hesse hunched over the ancillary station, both of them braced against the erratic fire. Enterprise needed to start hitting its marks. Reed's voice suddenly broke over the intercom. "Engineering! They're firing on the shuttle bay doors." Trip checked that the safety systems were up and running, any decompression would be limited to the shuttle bays.

And in one blinding instant he realized what they were doing.

Before he could think he had left Hesse in charge and was running full speed down the corridors. The rebels had already taken T'Pol from him, the hell he was going to let them take back their transport.

xxx

 _ **T'Pol**_

She'd never experienced a red alert on Enterprise without being on the bridge or making her way there. But guests, VIP or not, were locked safely away in times of danger and her door wouldn't yield, she couldn't step out until the red alert ended. The experience was new, and uncomfortable, quickly catalogued among those best avoided. The ship shook again and she grabbed the wall for balance. It felt like the enemy was firing straight at residential quarters, an unorthodox approach, the engines and the weapons were nowhere near.

T'Pol lowered her shields slightly, in spite of Trip's interdict. His block would be weaker from being otherwise occupied, she could monitor his well-being without detection.

The next salvo brought the lights down. A few seconds later the soft glow of emergency lighting suffused her cabin and the doors automatically opened. Leaving her quarters had become an option. She stepped out into the corridor. The eerie silence was the first thing she noticed, Enterprise was no longer a cacophonous ship.

Several things happened at once. She sensed that Trip was in trouble and she started running to him. At the exact same time, three rebels came running down the corridor, towards her. For a few seconds it looked like they were running after her, then it became clear they were running together.

She didn't know where they were going but she was running to Shuttle Bay Two.

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

Hindsight helping, running blindly to the Vulcan shuttle may not have been the best option. He could have gotten himself armed, he could have asked a MACO to jog along, he could have checked first and walked in second.

These were the thoughts occupying Trip as he stared at the cold end of a Vulcan phaser. Trust the Nahr to have handed over the transport exactly as it were and why didn't Reed pass the ship through a fine-toothed comb.

He didn't know the Vulcan at the other end of the phaser, at least not closely, but he certainly knew the tall one next to him. Jivak. Again. Trip rued the instinct that had made him rush to Shuttle Bay Two.

"How do we open the cargo doors?" Jivak demanded, his companion keeping the phaser precisely aimed at Trip.

The engineer sneered. Like he would tell. "You won't be able to get it off the ground. It has a double security system." He announced. Just as he was saying those words, Trip realized with a sinking feeling that the double in the security was the Vulcan system, and that if anything the rebels would already have the passwords. Unless the Nahr had changed them. Which given the fact they had not taken out the weapons was a long shot indeed. And Reed wouldn't have realized the Nahr hadn't.

Another jolt shook the ship, making everyone brace themselves. Trip saw an opening and he twisted and ran, diving behind a random container. And swore when the lights suddenly went out. That meant the main circuit had overloaded, the emergency systems would take over. He mentally went through the list of circuits that would remain powered during an outage. Since it was used for storage, Shuttle Bay Two was not on that list, nor were its doors. Did anyone remember to update the list when the transport came aboard? He doubted it. He knew he didn't.

The side doors opened, and in rushed T'Pol ahead of a bevvy of rebels. It would all have been well and good if the door hadn't been behind Trip. He was swiftly hauled to his feet and found himself again at the wrong end of a phaser. This time Jivak was holding it.

Trip could only stare at T'Pol, his heart broken. She was in on the break-out or she wouldn't have rushed in Shuttle Bay Two along with the rebels.

Jivak greeted her with an eyebrow. "So, you came. That is pleasing."

T'Pol just looked at him haughtily. With Vulcan computational speed she had gathered Trip, the phaser, the transport, the rebel group running with her, and deducted the rebels had come to her cabin to take her with them, chance had drawn her to the same place before they'd asked. She would go with them but first she needed to make them release Trip.

A Vulcan from the operational group poked his head out of the transport. "Jivak! The engines are on line. The shuttle bay doors are unlocked. The time is propitious to go."

"You do not need an engineer, your team is proficient. I shall come with you, let him go." T'Pol took a step forward, subtly stepping between Trip and the phaser, hoping Jivak would fall in line.

"No, don't!" Trip pushed forward, grabbing on to T'Pol. She swiveled and propelled him back a few yards, snarling as she did so. He went sprawling, but she had succeeded in getting him out of the immediate zone of danger. T'Pol eyed him coldly before turning to Jivak. "Leave him behind, he is of no further use to us."

"He could still vouch for your behavior." Jivak and T'Pol both turned around to stare at Spivac, standing with a foot on the step of the transport.

"I do not need a voucher." T'Pol let the contempt drip from her voice.

"There is no time. We need to be going." Jivak's tone clearly impressed on them that was the final word. Relieved, T'Pol stepped towards the shuttle.

"I'm coming with you." Trip's voice was loud and clear. He didn't know what was going on but hell would freeze over before he'd lose her again.

T'Pol froze, her eyes widening in surprise, then anger. There was no time to react. Trip was already at her side, then ahead of her in the transport. She briefly closed her eyes against the rage creeping up her spine that because of him things didn't go as planned.


	27. The Forest 27 - The Plan

xxx

 ** _Reed_**

"What do you mean, Tucker is gone?! How could it happen?!" Archer was beet red, the veins on his neck jutting at a scary angle.

"Sir," Reed stood ramrod straight, staring at the wall, at anything but the apoplectic captain. "I don't know, sir."

Archer was foaming at the mouth. "You don't know?! You're supposed to be the best security officer in the fleet. How could you have let that happen?!"

Reed's jaw worked. That was a low blow. Especially considering... but there was nothing for him to do but take it. "I don't have an answer, sir." He let the response float in the air.

"Who else is missing?!"

Reed thought perhaps he should call Phlox, before Archer actually had a stroke of some kind. He swallowed. "The rebels, sir. And T'Pol."

Archer managed to get a hold of himself through extreme control. When he talked again, his face was pale, his voice was even. "And Trip just went with them?"

Was that a trick question? Reed found himself wondering. He decided it was safer to not say anything. Finally when the silence got to be too much, he hazarded an answer. "Well... huh..." He was starting to wish for some battle or some explosion, perhaps a fire in engineering, anything but this protracted raking over the coals. Perhaps the Romulans would come back. But that hope was already squashed. They had seen the tail ends of the six birds of prey escorting the Vulcan transport back to Romulan space.

Archer pivoted on him. "You have to find out exactly how it happened. If Trip went rogue, I need to know. The entire Federation needs to know. And the Vulcans. I need to see Soval. Now!"

"Aye, sir." Reed saluted, turned around and was gone, stopping in the hallways to exhale. Archer did know to throw a scene when he wanted to. He'd let Soval know, and then go figure out what the hell had happened to his friend. The door suddenly swooshed open in his back, and Reed jumped as if touched with a hot iron.

"And get me Phlox before you get Soval." Archer said. "Perhaps he'll tell me if Trip went crazy."

xxx

 ** _Trip_**

"So, that's it, you've become one of them?"

Trip was standing in the middle of the cell he knew well. Not that he'd ever imagined he'd back there, and certainly not with T'Pol. Though the difference was she could come and go, he was once again somewhat confined.

T'Pol didn't answer but looked down and to the side, as she did whenever something made her uncomfortable.

"No initiation ritual, nothing?" Trip was going on, his accent thick as he tried to goad her into a reaction. "I thought at least there'd be some blood involved, you know, like you'd become blood brothers, well sister in your case, or some secret mumbo-jumbo. Perhaps kill someone even." That earned him a stare. "Oh don't give me that, these people are killers, they're not your usual Surak followers." A thought quickly formed that perhaps he would be the one to be killed and he preferred to discard it just as quickly. "Come on, it can't be that easy, you just walk up, say I want to be with you, and that's it, you're one of them?"

T'Pol still didn't answer. She finally turned away from him, looking at the far wall of the cell. "Why did you come?"

The question cut Trip to the quick. "I realize this may not have been my most inspired move." His tone was cutting. "Somehow, I didn't want to have you disappear on me. Silly me. I should have known better." He stopped, shaking his head. "I didn't get the fact you had turned." That earned him a lightning-quick glance. "That didn't take long. What, you get a letter from your long lost father who's in Romulan space and all of a sudden what these people believe in becomes the best thing since sliced bread?" He saw T'Pol flinch and a small voice in Trip's head commented that this was perhaps too much what it looked like. The gears in his head started slowly turning, even as he kept berating her. He paused. That letter had just been too convenient. And he'd seen that Spivac didn't trust her.

"We have to decide what do to with you." T'Pol's voice was almost a whisper.

Trip's looked away. ' _We_ '. She really had gone to the other side. He shouldn't have come. He should have let her go. It seemed painfully obvious now. He sat heavily on the cot in his cell, hands hanging between his legs. "Go ahead, nothing's stopping you."

Xxx

 ** _Soval_**

"And your chief engineer took it upon himself to join the rebels?" Soval was back to the arrogant and mordant style of their early years together. Archer knew the ambassador was far from pleased. And he had every right to be angry.

"My chief security officer, Lieutenant Reed, has pulled the tapes from Shuttle Bay Two, and it clearly shows he was not coerced." Reed turned the screen towards Soval, activated the reader. "Actually, T'Pol tried to prevent him from boarding the transport." Archer added. Soval might as well know ahead of time what he would find.

The ambassador watched in silence. Afterwards he didn't say a word but his entire demeanor expressed a profound anger. "Have you investigated further? Do you know what his motivations were?" The questions were clipped and rapid-fire.

Archer took a step back from the table, straightening up. "We're still looking for anything we could find that would explain why he did what he did. Dr. Phlox doesn't believe he was under psychological stress but it still could have been a form of post-traumatic stress disorder."

An eyebrow and a tilt of the eye let Archer know this needed further definition. "It is a form of psychological disorder that can strike Humans who have survived traumatic circumstances. Like being kidnapped during a terrorist attack or being hunted by a bunch of aliens."

A flick of an eyebrow conveyed exactly how little Soval thought of such alien vulnerabilities. Archer shoved down his anger at Soval's reaction. Starfleet and by extension the Federation didn't have much to be proud of, with a rogue engineer absconding with the rebels of his own volition. Though to be fair, the tapes also showed T'Pol didn't put much of a fight. He didn't know whether joining the rebels was a crime on Vulcan but he didn't see how the Federation would consider it anything less than treason.

The ambassador got up from his chair and walked to the window of the conference room. The news shared by the captain was not good. The departure was as unexpected as it was unwanted, threatening to upset the delicate equilibrium. If the Human got killed in Romulan space, T'Pol might be lost to them, everything she knew an asset for the Romulans.

On the reader, the scene looped around, the sound too low but for Vulcan ears. T'Pol declaring she was going with the rebels, Trip being thrown to safety and at the last minute walking back and announcing he was leaving. There had been no coercion, no rational reason. Other than T'Pol and she had clearly shown she didn't want him along.

Archer was bitterly disappointed in his commander. "I thought perhaps T'Pol mentioned something to you." Just in case the two of them had planned it ahead.

Soval turned to him, disapproval on his face. Typical Human behavior to think that perhaps the aliens colluded. How to make these people understand this was not how Vulcans behaved, that T'Pol would not even have imagined substituting her will to that of all Vulcan. "I doubt T'Pol would have come see me to discuss breaking Vulcan law." That was a concept they could more readily understand.

"It's just…" There was no good way to say it. "The same way we are digging through everything related to Commander Tucker, we also need to investigate T'Pol. Leaving no stone unturned. I'm sure you understand?"

Soval nodded at Archer's question. It was the Humans' time to waste. "Proceed." He turned to leave. He needed to let T'Pau know, and Sphelt, and the other operatives. Regroup and rework the plan. The odds would have to be redrawn, the interjection of a weaker element put everything and everyone at risk.

He found Lieutenant Reed standing in his way to the door. "Is it possible T'Pol was playing us all along?"

Soval looked nonplussed at the Captain.

"Deceiving us." Archer helpfully supplied.

Soval's eyebrows left their steady orbit. "If you remember, Captain, it was T'Pol's choice to enlist as a Starfleet officer. It would be illogical for her to compromise that standing."

"Illogical but not impossible." Reed replied. Soval's expression clearly showed what he thought of that statement.

xxx

 ** _Trip_**

The men that brought Trip to the bridge stepped aside. He recognized Spivac. Funny thing how the healer was always around. T'Pol was on the side. Trip saw Poryk look at him and then glance at T'Pol when he came in. It was really interesting how much he'd learn to tell what Vulcans were thinking. He suddenly realized his presence exposed T'Pol. They could blackmail her through him. Now, he really regretted having decided to come.

Spivac was the one talking. And his question was addressed at T'Pol. "How did you come to be with us? The envoys never asked."

Trip looked around. Jivak as usual wasn't saying a word, letting everyone debate until he rendered his decision at the end. He was the leader and they all respected him.

"I decided of my own accord." T'Pol seemed to find Spivac's question inopportune. "Whether I was asked or not is irrelevant."

"But instead of coming alone, you brought a Qomi with you," Spivac sneered.

T'Pol's eyebrows expressed her displeasure. "I did not bring him, he followed me."

 _Nice_! Thought Trip. Did he mention he regretted getting on that forsaken transport?

"You would have us believe his presence here is unexpected? That it is not the outcome of well-prepared plans?"

Trip thought he might like to punch Spivac. The healer had always seemed somewhat detached, but in fact he was a bloodhound. He would have sneered back at the man that yes it was completely unexpected but a sixth sense told him to let T'Pol fight that battle.

"If we had decided together he would have been better prepared than to rush headlong into your plans."

"That is right." Jivak interjected. "He was visibly surprised by our presence in the transport."

 _Visibly surprised_. More like these guys almost gave him a heart attack. He had pushed on the latch to make sure it was still securely closed and had almost fallen straight into the arms and guns of the rebels.

"There is no choice but for you to undo what you did. He cannot come with us to Romulan space." Spivac was back at it. Trip glared at him. The pox on his tongue.

"Undo what I did? What exactly is the remedy you seek?"

"You have to kill him."

Trip stared at Spivac. "Violent words for a healer."

"Be quiet, qomi!" The healer also had a temper.

T'Pol stared hard at Spivac, making Trip feel just a little bit better that she wasn't jumping on the chance to kill him. "Tell me where the logic is in eliminating the Human when you wanted to bring him as a voucher for my behavior."

 _Nicely done_. If Trip's life hadn't been in the balance, he would have applauded the point.

That seemed to throw Spivac for a loop. Only momentarily, unfortunately. "Kill him and prove your loyalty while you get rid of the nuisance you brought along."

'Two birds with one stone' thought Trip. Humans had such shorter ways to say the same things. These people were violent, and T'Pol's presence along wasn't going to save him. If they killed him, it would kill her too, and then she'd have done the whole thing for nothing. Forget her father, she would never see him again.

"I maintain his presence was not my doing." T'Pol rebuffed the healer, trying to divert focus to whether she was at fault for bringing him aboard. Trip was grateful but he didn't trust Spivac would be easily fooled.

"Your presence attracted him."

"Hardly. He was already in the shuttle bay when I arrived."

Before the argument could escalate further, a voice resonated across the room. " _Kroykah!_ The Human lives."

Every head turned to look at Jivak. The leader had his eyes set on the stars ahead, seeming to indicate the dispute taking place behind him was not worthy of attention.

"But, Leader -" Spivac started.

Jivak turned to him. "The Human saved us when we were being tracked by the hunters. That is the only reason he shall stay alive today. If he gives us reason to kill him another day, you shall proceed. But only upon his provocation." He turned to T'Pol. "And since you were the reason he came along, you alone shall be responsible for his behavior. If he gives us reason to kill him, you shall be killed as well. So it is said."

Jivak turned back to the stars. Trip looked at his back. This was the second time Jivak had saved his life. Except that this time he had linked him to T'Pol in a life or death double-bind. He would have to remember to thank him at some point. Perhaps.

But Spivac was not done. "The Romulans... How are we going to explain?" He urgently lobbed at Jivak. The tall Vulcan stared him down, seeming at the same time to consider. Then he turned around, looking at T'Pol. "Romulans have a culture of personal slaves. They won't question someone's choice in the matter." He turned to Trip. "Human engineer, do you accept T'Pol as your owner and master?"

 _As if I haven't already_ , was the first snarky thought that came to Trip. He would really have liked to ask what the hell that involved and what exactly he was supposed to do, but had a sense his answer was the difference between living a while longer or not. And as he went, so did T'Pol. He nodded, suddenly speechless, then cleared his throat. "huh... yes?"

"So it is done." Jivak turned back to the controls with a parting shot at T'Pol. "You can keep him in your quarters."

 _Woof!_ thought Trip. Another snarky thought best kept to himself. He really, really, wished he hadn't gotten onto that transport.

Xxx

 _ **Archer**_

Archer could read in Toussaint's face everything he was not saying. How Trip's behavior was not surprising, considering his captain was a loose cannon, an undisciplined beast, a swashbuckler best left to trawl around the edges of civilized space. The rear admiral brought his hands together. "And what are you doing about it?"

"We're exploring all possibilities." Archer replied. If he ever got his hands on Trip, he would string him high and dry just for the humiliation suffered. It was bad enough to have been subjected to Harris's scorn, at least he respected Harris, but to have a soft-water bureaucrat pass judgment on him... Reed better find Trip had an iron-clad reason.

"At least it closes the book on what to do about your Vulcan officer." Toussaint off-the-cuff remarked.

Once again Archer found himself narrowing his eyes at the Admiral. It sounded more and more like Toussaint was a closet xenophobic. "What do you mean?" He asked. Might as well make sure.

"About whether Starfleet will ever reinstate her. That's a done deal. Not a bad thing, if you ask me. This whole thing proves she was a loyalty risk. They all are." Toussaint had about had it with this whole Vulcan joint operations thing.

Archer carefully swallowed his retort. He was in no position to berate his commanding officer and remind him Starfleet was the one who had pretty much forced her to do this.

xxx

 ** _T'Agad Story_**

'Interrogate T'Agad.' Archer had ordered. 'She was a double agent, she claims she has turned, but who knows, she may still be working both sides.' It wouldn't be the first time someone turned and turned again.

Except Archer was not the one who had to sit in a too hot room with a shorn woman in a meditation pose paying no attention whatsoever to the Chief Security Officer of Enterprise. Malcolm cleared his throat loudly. Again. It took another twenty minutes before the woman looked at him with a gaze that passed right through him. Reed could feel the blush over his face as he stammered, nervously passing a finger around his collar. "Apologies for disturbing you, I was hoping we could talk about T'Pol."

The woman looked at him but did not reply. Reed realized he would have to do most of the talking. He nervously kept going. "T'Pol has left with your former comrades. Our Chief Engineer Officer has left with them also." He stressed the word 'former' just enough to let her know he didn't fully believe they were former colleagues.

There still was no hint of a response. Reed shrugged, might as well ask. "We were wondering if perhaps you had any information about this."

T'Agad blinked as if she were coming out of a long sleep. "She went to seek her father." The statement took Malcolm by surprise. He hadn't expected she'd known. He found himself stammering his next question.

"Uh. How do you know?"

"She told me so." Obviously T'Agad had not considered the possibility T'Pol may have lied.

"But what about the rebels? She joined their cause."

"The rebels know their way around Romulan space. T'Pol needed them to get there." So far, the answers were exactly as expected.

"And the Chief Engineer?" Reed carefully listened for any change in tone, any hesitation, any hint that what came next would be prevarication.

"She was not planning on him being with her. That is why she came to see me." T'Agad stated matter-of-factly.

"And did you advise her to have him go along?"

T'Agad looked at Reed as if she hadn't seen him before. "I advised her that any decision was hers and hers alone, not to let herself be swayed by others."

Reed knew that T'Agad would truthfully respond to any question he asked and he didn't want to solicit any intimate revelations. So T'Pol had not planned this whole thing with Trip. At least not as twenty-four hours before. He would tell Archer T'Agad was not in on this.


	28. The Forest 28 - The Plant

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

Trip eyed the tight quarters, the narrow bunk. "I'll sleep on the floor."

"You will sleep on the bed." The tone was authoritarian.

The thought brushed by Trip that T'Pol seemed very comfortable with ordering him around. A tad too much, perhaps. Trip started chuckling, thought better of it, turned around hands on his hips, ready for a fight. "Really?!"

"You are my personal slave and you shall do as I say."

Trip felt an angry blush creep up his cheeks, He counted to ten, forcing himself to not react. If he assaulted his owner on the first day, he wouldn't last very long. He needed to rest. It had been a tough day, he would be better able to gauge the situation with a clear head. "Very well." He laid down stiffly, hands under his head. Fine, is she wanted to play it that way. But he'd never become a compliant participant.

T'Pol was busying herself with a padd. He didn't know what she was looking at, probably some stuff related to the rebels. He found the clickety-click of her fingers on the keypad to be grating. The noise of the key strokes was irritating. He waited, getting madder by the second. Long stroke long stroke short stroke short stroke long stroke. What the hell was she writing?!

And then he almost sat straight up on the bed. Morse code. That's what she was doing. He waited, knowing she could tell he was now paying attention. Short-long-long-short-long-long-long-short-long-short-short-short-short-short - WATCH - short-long-short-short -ED. They were being watched. She couldn't talk. He couldn't talk.

Trip's head was spinning, too much contradictory information. If she was reaching out to him, perhaps she was not in with the rebels. Spivac didn't trust her, that was for sure. Neither did Jivak, at least not enough. He no longer knew which side was up. He waited in tense expectation as she spent more time on her padd. He felt the rustle of her clothes as she stepped by the narrow bunk to the meditation corner. Somehow, somewhere, he fell asleep while waiting.

xxx

 ** _Hoshi_**

Hoshi was naked, looking in the mirror at Malcolm lounging on her bed. It had all been prepared, carefully planned, she was a master at this.

"I got a communication from Starfleet press." She was looking at herself combing her hair in the mirror, all the while not letting go of the image of Malcolm's face.

"Yes?"

There it was, the minute tension at the corner of the eyes, Malcolm had perked up. All she had to do was proceed softly, step by step. She lounged a little more over her hair, brushing and brushing. And then she went to the next question.

"They were asking if we are pursuing charges of high treason." And as fast as lighting it was there, the nervous swallowing. Something was going on.

"What did you tell them?" The tone was expectedly curt, meant to cut off any further inquiry. Hoshi smiled to herself. She got him where she wanted.

"That the information was so confidential I'd have to shoot them after I told them." There it was again, the swallowing, the eyes shifting away from her. Malcolm was relieved. Yes, something was going on. Whatever the higher-ups were concocting, things weren't as they seemed.

Knowing Malcolm, if they were traitors, he'd be the first to send them up the river. Now if she could get him to tell her what was really going on...

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

He woke up in a panic, unable to breathe, realized that T'Pol had her hand over his mouth. Was she trying to kill him? Still covering his mouth, she got on top of him, straddling him, rhythmically rocking as if they were in the throes of passion. Which was far from what he was feeling, he was angry and she was trying to smother him.

She dipped towards him and exhaled in a breath that took the form of a whisper. "My mind to..." He understood at once what she was trying to do, glad for the hand over his mouth, he was by nature a talker and he would have exclaimed but for it. It was a struggle to release the block, such was his anger, but in the end he couldn't resist the pull of her mind calling to him.

He started playing the game on his side, locking her into a tight embrace, looking from all appearances like a lover clinging to his lover. And then suddenly, he was in her head, seeing what she was seeing. The hand over his mouth didn't release its hold while her mind let him know they were back in time to Enterprise.

The images were blurry on the edge but still very clear. He was in one of the aft rooms, so close to engineering he could hear the clanging and clacking of the fusion cartridges. There were four of them, T'Pol, Soval, Reed and the Captain. The room was hot, Reed and Archer were sweating. The room was noisy, Soval and T'Pol's eyes were slightly crinkled at the corners as they mentally braced against the din. The shared discomfort added to the surreal scene.

"I've set up the antilist devices." Reed announced to the group. Trip at once understood the reason for the location of the meeting. The surrounding sound would make quick work of whoever could break the codes and listen in. He was surprised none of his team had spotted them, unless they had snuck in at different times. The crew was used to seeing T'Pol amble by day or night, always with some padds for their commander to sign, her eyes never straying far from wherever he happened to be standing. The others must have seemed really innocuous or Hesse would have been all over him about them.

Soval talked first, addressing T'Pol. "Vulcan and the Federation are working together on this. You understand the parameters of your mission?" _So that whole thing about Starfleet not reinstating her, that was just a ploy?_ Trip was a little bit upset that he hadn't been let in on this. Through the bond he felt T'Pol's reassurance that there was good reason.

T'Pol nodded. "Identify the handler of the rebels and find the roster of agents."

It was Reed's turn to talk. "We hold from our counterparts on Vulcan," he nodded at Soval in acknowledgement, "that the rebels will be contacted by the Romulans. We believe they will organize a rescue mission of some kind. Everything has been prepared for their success. You will continue to fraternize with them, look like you are being swayed over to their views."

"And expect them to believe that a former Starfleet officer has espoused their beliefs?" T'Pol questioned.

Soval lifted a hand to stop the comment budding on Archer's lips. "The rebels will believe that your true interest is to go with them to Romulan space and find your father. That is what you will tell T'Agad when the time is right. If anyone asks her, she will say so." Trip stared in amazement. _Was the thing about her father also false_? But Soval was going on. "They will assume that you are allied with them for expediency. They will think that once in Romulan space you are dependent on them and will hold their confidence. There is no risk to them."

"How do you know already what they will think?" T'Pol was practical. Trip was amused.

"There is another member of the rebel group that is not as he seems, but for you to know would endanger you and him." Soval answered. "He will facilitate your access. Poryk also will be by your side, nobody knows he's an ally. Once you find the handler and locate the list, he will arrange for transmission and extraction."

That was when Archer intervened. "T'Pol, this is a dangerous mission. You can still refuse to go." He threw a dark stare at Soval and at Reed in turn. "I'm sure our spy networks will find some other way to get the information."

T'Pol shook her head slightly . "Soval is right, Captain. There is no better time to infiltrate the rebel group. My... family... credentials incline the rebels to trust me."

"What about your father? Will you try to find him?"

T'Pol looked at to the captain. "My father last wrote to me thirty years ago. If he is still alive I wouldn't know where to find him."

"There will be time for you to find him after you send the information." Soval interjected.

This time it was Soval that Archer turned to. "You're sure there's no other way? Why do we have to wait for the extraction?"

Soval looked like he'd had that conversation before. "If everything goes as planned, the rebels will not know the information is compromised. T'Pol will keep operating as a member of the rebel group until their next mission to Federation space. We will retrieve her at that time."

Trip's shock broke the mind-meld. He wanted to protest but T'Pol's hand was still on his mouth. He tried talking in his mind, hoping she'd gather his thoughts. ' _Hold it! How often do the rebels have missions to Federation space?!_ "

Her reluctance to answer told him he was right. He pushed her away from him, trying to come to terms with what he'd seen and what it inferred. He didn't know who he was more angry at. At Soval and the Vulcans, who shamelessly used her even though they knew it might be years, years!, before she came back. What if she went into ponn farr while away from him in Romulan space? it would kill her. Did they even think about it?! And underneath the feeling that wouldn't be silenced, that if she hadn't been bonded to a Human they'd never have done it.

He was angry at Archer and Reed, too, at least Archer had tried to protect her, but Reed. He thought he was his friend, but obviously his loyalty was to Section 31 first and foremost. And Starfleet. Starfleet also was using her. Typical.

And he was angrier than ever at T'Pol. He certainly got that she had not been at liberty to share this with him but she would have stepped onto that transport knowing it could be years before she might see him again, if ever.

He knew her well enough that he could appreciate she'd be confident of finding some other way to get back to Federation space well ahead of their plan. Especially if she found her father, he would help her. But what if she didn't, where would she be then, where would they both be?

He was really glad he got onto that transport. He could see how that made him about as welcome as ants at a picnic and made things dicier with the rebels but at least he knew where she was and he could protect her. If someone had shared all of that with him earlier, he wouldn't have made such a mess of things. Come to think of it, he wouldn't have let her go alone, so it really made no difference. _Yes, Trip, keep telling yourself that_. He turned on his side, his back to T'Pol. He just needed to be alone with his thoughts for a while.

xxx

 _ **Soval**_

"We need to accelerate the extraction." Soval went straight to the heart of the matter.

Sphelt inclined his head gravely. The head of Section 31 has already reached out to him. He still hadn't found who on the Council had let it be known the rebels were being held on Enterprise. In time, they would find the leak, the actual traitor. "Extractions require much time and effort. Do you agree with the Humans' assessment?"

"Indeed. Romulans do not often see Humans. Odds are overwhelming that his presence will eventually come to the attention of the authorities. They are sure to discover he is a Starfleet officer." Silence settled as both men thought about what the Romulans would do to Trip for that discovery.

"They will obtain all of his information and knowledge." Sphelt commented from the perspective of a security specialist.

"They may view it as an act of war on the part of the Federation." Soval added the foreign affairs angle.

Sphelt narrowed his eyes in annoyance. Humans were an undisciplined species, letting their emotions rule their behavior. That their presence would raise unexpected issues was to be expected, however unpleasant.

"If we extract him, it is logical to extract her also." Soval pointed out.

Sphelt nodded. Delaying T'Pol re-entry had been related to time and resources. Once the time and resources had to be spent, logic dictated optimizing them. "You realize that means entering Romulans space with a vessel large enough for a crew and two guests. There are few who venture on those routes." He fell silent again, pondering. "Will she have time to complete her mission?"

"She will have access on day one. Any help we send will be a few months behind."

"That may be too long a time."

There was no need for an answer and Soval didn't have one. The odds of T'Pol and Trip staying alive had decreased yet again.

xxx

 _ **Archer**_

"Perhaps you'd care to enlighten us?" Archer was making an effort to keep his voice level. Soval looked at the hockey puck-sized cylinder on the table, hardly deigning raise an eyebrow.

"This is what we found above the armory." Reed turned the puck over. "Vulcan fabrication. It played havoc with our targeting sensors. Only a degree off, but enough we kept missing the Romulan ships."

"What are you asking?" Sometimes Soval simply didn't understand Humans. It had been explained to them that Enterprise would serve as bait. He wasn't sure what they seemed upset about.

Archer squeezed the bridge of his nose, realizing the Ambassador was not guilty or embarrassed, merely nonplussed. Something was telling him this was yet another miscommunication, both sides thinking they were saying the same thing. "You knew about this?" Might as well take things from the top.

"Of course."

 _Yep_ , Archer could see something didn't get translated in the process. "Who else knew about it?"

"Your Section 31 representative, Mr. Haris." Reed almost choked on hearing the words, wondered how Harris would feel to know he had been demoted to 'representative'. He exchanged a glance with Archer. Harris may have known about it. Or not. The man would never tell unless there was something in it for the Section.

"Well", Archer had his palms on the conference table, leaning his weight on them, "I would have appreciated knowing about it."

There was a quick lift of an eyebrow, and Archer didn't need to hear it to know what the question was. His first retort would have been "Because I'm the Captain, that's why!" but he didn't think that would impress Soval too much. In the end though that was exactly what he said.

The Vulcan thought it over for several seconds. "Yes, Captain, you are right. I apologize. Will that be all?"

"No, not quite." All of a sudden, Archer felt really tired. "The extraction. How are you planning to get them out." He glanced at Reed. "Because we've an idea we'd like to float." Then quickly, before Soval could look up at the ceiling, "That means run by you."

When they were done, Soval stared at Archer. "It looks like I will be with you a while longer, Captain."

Archer nodded slowly. He hadn't really considered that the Vulcan ambassador would leave enterprise but he could see that would happen if T'Pol was in Romulan space for what could be years. Now of course, time was of the essence. They had to extricate Trip, and T'Pol, as fast as they could.

xxx

 _ **Hoshi**_

"Is there a problem, Ensign?"

Hoshi looked up at Archer, then back down at what he had asked her to send. Of course there was a problem. How could he not know it.

She kept staring at the two signs, the large "WANTED ALIVE" angrily sprawled in bold red letters over the pictures of Trip and T'Pol. The words below were terse, in Standard and Vulcan, his caption calling him a traitor to the Federation, hers branding her a traitor to Vulcan and the Federation. The reward promised for their capture would propel all the bounty hunters in the quadrant after the pair, and anyone else looking for a quick leap into the lap of luxury. The zero sign underneath made it clear payment would take place only if they were alive. And together.

Hoshi swallowed, looked up at Archer again."It's just, sir..." She paused as Reed joined him next to her station, the two of them hovering like avenging angels. "Are you sure?" She looked at the padd again.

"Ensign, I realize these were your friends. It's always difficult when people you know and trust turn out to be unworthy."

"They are guilty of treason under Federation law." Malcolm added. Hoshi looked at him standing stiff and proper next to the Captain. She turned back to her console, starting to recall the parameters for the relay beacons while her mind darted around over what she knew. Malcolm had his poker face on. He had yet to realize after losing countless poker games that it was the face itself that let her know he was bluffing. If he was bluffing, once again it meant the information was not true.

Then why were they doing it, sic bounty hunters onto T'Pol and Trip, expose them to additional danger? It was bad enough they had gone with the rebels to Romulan space, their lives were already at risk.

She glanced at Travis as she hit the "send" button. He could see her console and had read the wanted signs. Their eyes crossed, neither of them giving a sign to the other that they were wondering what the brass was thinking.


	29. The Forest 29 - The Courier

xxx

 _ **Cathruusa**_

Trip watched from the shadows, his eyes never wavering from his target. He was near enough he could easily jump anyone who came too close, the top of his face hidden by the leather half-mask that marked him as a slave and thankfully hid his blond locks and blue eyes, so different from the aliens all around. There were other slaves with rounded ears, but none with yellow hair. Cathruusa was a rough-and-tumble corner of the world, a huge space station on a small planet in a dusty corner of Romulan space, far enough removed from the long arm of the government that many things went on that would otherwise have been hidden.

The current scheme that Trip was aiding and abetting had to do with a dark warehouse in an unsavory corner and the delivery of instructions as to how and when to hand over contraband goods. The light rain was distorting the pale _lightalos_ around the entrance, polishing their reflection on the rough cobblestones, drubbing its steady beat on T'Pol's cape and uncovered head, the vulcanoid alien she was talking to well protected by an awning. Couriers like her were not allowed accessories that might hide their features, their pictures were well known and publicized, the traders in contraband insisting that the purveyors of instructions at least be legitimate. Another paradox of the Cathruusan underworld.

Trip watched the exchange, mentally counting five steps. His duty was to always stay within six steps of his owner, the ideal distance to see potential threats and intervene. He didn't like the face of the burly alien, and five steps was as far as he would go. The alien nodded his understanding of what T'Pol was telling him and accepted the rough letter-size package from her hands. Trip didn't miss the lascivious look that hugged T'Pol's form as she stepped closer to the door. He narrowed his eyes at the alien, pouring male bravado into the stare. The alien quickly took a step back, signaling he could see Trip meant business and he wasn't up for a fight, not with a personal slave. Their reputation as fighters to the death on behalf of their charges was too well-established.

Once again Trip thanked his lucky stars that Jivak had forced him to become T'Pol's personal slave. He was in charge of her safety and well-being, and mighty glad of it. She would constantly be in harm's way if it were not for him. Unsure about her commitment as a rebel, Jivak had assigned her the lowliest job on the totem pole, a courier for the syndicate that financed the rebels, the _Matravekh_. Trip could have sworn he was advised to do so by Spivac, with the hopes of getting rid of the two of them. Or else the rebel leader had no idea how dangerous being a courier was, Vulcans were never assigned to that job, too well respected for the power between their ears instead.

Like all good criminal syndicates, the _Matravekh_ dealt exclusively in cash and illegal activities. It made most of its money through fictitious exports and illegal importations, providing huge profits without taxes, and also dealt in the usual triumvirate of corruption, extortion and drug trade, and, because of a personal predilection of the head of the organization, a small chain of retail _stor'wu_ stores throughout the region. In addition to generating revenue, the _stor'wu_ was used to conceal shipments of money and weapons.

The _Matravekh_ was not the most important criminal organization, nor the least, but it was a solid participant in many nefarious schemes that garnished its purse and financed mayhem across Vulcan and the Federation. Per force its dealings were off the system, off any system, it operated in the shadows, deep enough to be under regular surveillance from the authorities, nothing that a few well-placed dead bodies and fat envelopes couldn't cure. As a result, the _Matravekh_ relied on a stable of couriers whose job it was to do what would normally take the touch of a button: orders and invoices, instructions to traders as to where in the checkered sections of town to deliver their cargo, messages of all types better left unrecorded.

Being a courier for the _Matravekh_ was one of the dirtiest, most dangerous jobs around. Being a courier essentially meant a life shortened. It was a stepping stone, drawing unsavory characters from all walks of life with the ambition to progress in the organization, if they survived the long hours, the dangerous clients, and each other's deathly ambitions. Like Cathruusan society and like the Matravekh itself, the couriers were hierarchically organized, with fifth-level couriers keen to prove their mettle as errand boys and girls in the dirtiest sectors, until, if they survived long enough, they were promoted up the ranks. First-level couriers were the ones who delivered the big fat envelopes full of all kinds of currencies, not many though, the syndicate knew to drag its feet when it came to payments. Those who could be trusted with payments could also be trusted with a line of business. The couriers all aspired to eventually rule their own world.

For the past three weeks, T'Pol had been assigned to the dock route, full of what looked like deserted warehouses, each run meaning miles of walking or jogging under either the relentless Cathruusan sun or its dizzying rain. Couriers were not provided with an _im'rath_ , and few were those who could afford one. And with a personal slave in tow, it would have doubled the cost. Those were the times when Trip made a concerted effort to think how much better it was for T'Pol that he was there, in her shadow.

It was a burden for him too. The half-mask was hot and bothersome, the clothes he had to wear were embarrassing, he felt like he was strolling through life in his underwear, though it was all made somewhat more palatable by the two-feet long knives that hung from his weightlifter belt, one for each side, another signal to the world outside to give T'Pol safe passage. That and the muscles rippling on his arms and thighs. If he thought he'd been in shape before, he had a good extra ten-pound of muscle to disprove it. Which would have been hard to fit into sleeves or pant legs, come to think of it the underwear-style garments were a good thing.

His mind went back to the Vulcan transport and the training they had been through while they made their way to Reldair. Poryk had unobtrusively taken charge of their training. Nobody had thought to ask why the weapons specialist was the one putting them through their paces. To Trip, the task of learning how to duck and feint, slash and point, hit and throw, martial arts mixed with close combat, with a Vulcan as his parry. It made Starfleet training seem light and easy. To T'Pol, training on how to incapacitate all kinds of aliens, and running, running, and running again, until she heaved on the sidelines, and then run some more. If Trip couldn't be there, her feet would be her best defense. By the time they reached Reldair the engineer and the scientist had become well-muscled paragons of fitness.

Trip's attention was jolted back by a movement on the side. He quickly checked there was no threat in sight, only a lazy _thelas_ using cover of the night and drizzly rain to chase some smaller animal. He had assiduously listened to the exposés Jivak gave about Reldair and Cathruusa, what to expect and how to behave, aware that Spivac and a few others were waiting for his first mistake to exterminate what they considered to be a pest. Like all good Vulcans, Jivak had been thorough in instructing them about Cathruusa and the syndicate.

Cathruusa was both alike and unalike anything he'd ever seen. It was truly alien, the smells and the colors, the warm rain and the strange foods, buildings that looked like hedgehogs, crisscrossed with baleful blades, the neat patrolling squads and the reckless street urchins. And it was also Human, children playing, couples ambling, families going about their business, the slaves even, of all races, meltingly ugly as the Renans or unique as he was, all trying to maximize their comfort and minimize pain and punishment. Not that he had much to complain, having a personal slave was abhorrent to Vulcans, as T'Pol had confessed once she was done mercilessly tweaking his feelings about it. He suspected Vulcan reticence had more to do with privacy than with moral standing, T'Pol didn't seem to have any issues ordering him around.

As soon as they stepped out in the open, they went back to pretending being slave and master, she ahead and he six paces behind. The warehouse route was the worst one, the delivery drops were each miles apart. The better runs were those where she could stop at the entrance of whatever was her destination, briefly talk with the guard at the door, and hand out what she was to deliver. The worse were those where the drop or the recipient was not expected, long hours spent waiting for each side to clear things up, her in the waiting area reserved for couriers and he six steps behind, sometimes outside, so long as he could keep her in his sight. Custom dictated she remain standing until the correctly identified recipient came to relieve her of the package or instructions but Trip could use the time as he wanted, usually on kinetic exercises, still looking to bulk up the muscles in his shoulders and his arms, each excursion into these disreputable places bringing home the importance of his staying in shape.

T'Pol was coming back, glanced at Trip as she walked by, another delivery smoothed over by his presence, and he automatically fell six steps behind. At no time could they reveal that their relationship went beyond that of master and slave.

Their connection had taken time to repair, time for him to stop being angry, he had so much to be angry about, including first and foremost himself. He hardly looked at her or talked to her initially, throwing himself in the training like a drowning man to a lifeline. The anger had receded into coldness, a feeling she didn't matter, none of this mattered, he still had decisions to make when they came back, if they ever came back. He remembered the turning point exactly, when she fell to her knees retching from over-exercise and Poryk coldly told her to get up and start running again. The next thing Trip knew he had Poryk up against the wall with an arm against his neck, telling him in shorter terms to take a long walk off a short cliff. Nobody, but nobody, went after his bondmate.

Poryk had gravely nodded and stepped aside, leaving Trip to realize he had passed some kind of test and that the anger was gone. He was no longer angry that she would have left without him, or that she badly treated him and hid what she was doing, or that he had rushed headlong without thinking and could still cost her life or the mission. Though in retrospect he was glad he had messed up. He didn't know what they all were thinking, but having her be a courier without the benefit of a protector would have been a death trap. Unless Poryk would have been it? Poryk only had eyes for T'Agad, he could never have watched over T'Pol like Trip.

It was only hours later, two hours nine minutes and ten seconds if one was a Vulcan, that they made it back to the rooms they shared in the old woman's home, courtesy of Poryk, though most of T'Pol's pay went to their lodgings, the rest to somehow be stretched to cover their food and Trip's training. They both instinctively checked that the old woman was asleep, no lights were showing from her quarters, before Trip took out the bolts of black fabric and strung them from the ceiling to hide windows and doors in their room and bathroom suite.

Then finally they could be no longer master and slave. Trip grabbed a towel and rubbed T'Pol dry, helping her out of soaked clothes and cape. She returned the ministrations and he grabbed the clothes and threw it in the corner ionizator, where they would find them dry and clean in the morning. They didn't have any night clothes, he wasn't sure if it was an oversight from Poryk or some kind of cosmic joke, but he was too tired to care. T'Pol was already walking to her meditation corner while Trip crawled into bed. When she joined him a while later, he automatically took her into his arms to warm her, still sleeping. The call for the next courier run may come anytime, they both needed their sleep.

xxx

 _ **Enterprise**_

"Everything okay, Ensign Mayweather?" Archer had seen the pilot listen to the feed on his console, then straighten, look at the screen, and turn around to look at him.

"May I have a word with you, sir?"

Archer had the presence of mind to hide his surprise. The helmsman was always so discrete, manning his console, listening to what was going on but seldom feeling he had the required weight to add his two cents. If Travis wanted to talk to him, it must be important.

"In my ready room, Ensign." Archer stepped off his chair. "Reed, you have the con."

Archer looked at Travis once the door had closed behind the younger man. "What is it?" Realizing he had almost added "son", which made him feel very ancient.

"My brother and my mother on the Horizon..." Travis hesitated, not sure how to bring up the subject. "You know, those wanted signs for Commanders Tucker and T'Pol," Archer nodded that he knew. He wasn't surprised the helmsman had seen them, they were for public posting, though he was well aware Travis didn't see them on a space station. "Cargo ships like the Horizon always know what's going on in the rougher neighborhoods. The docks are not always home to the most reputable spacefarers." Archer nodded. He well knew. "The rewards for the commanders have been hot news throughout space since they were posted, but my mother tells me that nobody's going for it. At least nobody she would even consider dealing with. I thought I should let you know."

Archer stared at his desk. Perhaps Travis was jumping the gun. "It is early yet. We put the word out right away thinking it would take time for them to locate T'Pol and Trip, and get there."

The young man shook his head. "My mother knows what she's talking about, Captain. The bounty hunters are tempted but most of them don't have the armament or connections to go through Romulan space. The only ones foolish enough to try are not professional. They will fail."

Archer frowned. This was not as planned. He needed to talk to Reed and then Soval.

"Thank you, Ensign. Thanks for letting me know. Please ask Lieutenant Reed to join me."

"Aye Captain." The young man left the ready room. Hoshi had been right, there was something afoot. Archer was more concerned about getting the commanders out of Romulan space than anything else.

xxx

 _ **Cathruusa**_

Chebiub carefully combed his hair, tightened his cape, the rain was falling hard tonight. He checked his image in the shine of his boots, smiled. They had cost him over a month's wages but they were in the latest style and established him as a successful courier. It was his gift to himself when he reached third level. It wouldn't take long before he got to second level, he had the legs and the looks. And more importantly, the soul. Of a killer.

He left his rooms, calling to the landlady to prepare his dinner. It cost him more money to get that level of service, but it was worth it. Soon he would be able to get a larger space, and then he could attract a woman, a looker, and have food and sex at a moment's notice.

His route tonight took him over the Sinee river, a gross stream crossing the worst part of own, full of highly toxic waste and so many bodies some said you could soon walk on it. That was where he had dumped the body of his eight-year old sister a few years back when she started taking too much of the family's resources, leaving less for him.

The delivery went smoothly, he kept his _im'rath_ well maintained and he no longer had to walk or run as long as when he was a fifth-level courier. He was already on the way back to his lodgings. His dinner wouldn't even be cold. He tightened the cape around his shoulders, bringing it over his head to hide from the constant rain. Next week would be a week of dry, and then they would have another week of wet. Some things never changed.

He saw the man swaying on the Sinee river footbridge and laughed to himself. Another drunk. He felt generous tonight, he would tip him over the railing and give him a chance to live, rather than kill him outright and then dump him over. He approached the swaying man. "Oh, you of the drink. Can I offer you more?"

The man turned to him, his head covered with a soft hat. Chebiub could not see anything of him except for the eyes. The man lurched towards him.

"Here, let me help you," Chebiub helpfully called, grabbing the man by the shoulder, checking where the tipping point was.

And looked down at the handle protruding from his abdomen, then up uncomprehendingly at the drunk man. Who didn't look drunk at all anymore. Chebiub looked down again and went to grab the handle, but he was already dead.

The other man pulled the knife out, holding Chebiub as if he were helping a drunken friend, helping him to the railing. He checked that nobody was looking then with a shove and a quick jerk, heaved Chebiub's body over, letting it slide noiselessly into the black swill of the Sinee.

* * *

 _ **Glossary**_

Reldair - planet in Romulan space.

Cathruusa - space port on Reldair where Matravekh has its headquarters.

Matravekh - criminal syndicate financing rebel groups to destabilize Vulcan and the Federation.

stor'wu - sweet food similar in texture to honey, though deep red in appearance.

thelas - a kind of feline, dog-sized.

lightalos - lighting fixture typical of Cathruusa.

im'rath - the Cathruusan preferred mode of pedestrian transportation; looks like a disk with pedals; self-propelled.

Chebiub - Cathruusan courier who dies quickly.

Sinee - polluted river that runs through the bad quarters of Cathruusa.

Jivak - Vulcan rebel leader.

Poryk - other Vulcan rebel actually on Federation side.

Spivac- Vulcan healer rebel.


	30. The Forest 30 - The Squeeze

xxx

 ** _Somewhere in Vulcan space_**

"Captain, they're approaching!"

The captain fluttered his main tentacle in acknowledgement. A shimmering wave of blue washed over him in excitement. The source had revealed that an unarmed Vulcan cargo ship would be passing right by the asteroid behind which they were hiding, loaded with rare minerals and dilithium crystals. The type of merchandise that would fetch ten times its price on the black market. Even with his captain's cut, the _Matravekh_ would be rolling in money when they were done. Enough to rebuild their arsenal. There were never enough weapons, not when they were used in simultaneous operations.

"Everyone ready?" the captain called over the private frequency only his crew could hear. A chorus of whistles and high-pitched whines answered him. Where any other species would have heard white noise, the captain understood "ready", "Yes, Captain" and "when do we get them?"

He turned a translucent shade of pink as he held his breath for thirty seconds before expelling all the air out of his body in one deflating rush, shouting "Let's go!"

The six vessels came out of hiding, rushing the cargo ship like the head of an arrow. There were no weapons to be feared, so the source said. It didn't take long before they had the ship's engine in their crosshairs, keeping it immobile while the containers were quickly untethered and hauled away. The source had always been reliable, they had more cargo than they knew what to deal with. The six ships left quickly, each of them saddled with two containers, their warp speed putting them well beyond any attempts at pursuits by the lumbering Vulcan hauler.

The rendez-vous point was a half-hour or so away, far removed from any trade paths. "Recovery teams, proceed!" Called the captain. Now they would inspect the containers, catalogue the loot before deciding which containers would go where. It was a menial task, best done with small two-person teams, the enviro-suits ill-fitted to their species who needed constant skin-to-air contact. The pirates who went on the space-walk would come back shriveled and grey, returning to their pulsating color after about two days.

The call from the first recovery team was unexpected. The captain looked at the flashing alert of the incoming message, wondering what to make of it, his huge cilia-bordered eye opening and closing in surprise. Then another incoming message channel lit up, then another. The yellow of surprise suffused his skin from the rounded top of his conic head to his multi-digit bottom appendages. He opened all the channels at once, whistling his question, "Yes, what's up?"

"Captain, the holds..." The chorus of whistles back was synchronized. "All the containers are empty."

The yellow deepened to a brighter shade before turning to the maroon of anger. It had never happened before. He needed to let the _Matravekh_ know.

xxx

 ** _Cathruusa_**

"Jivak!" The rebel leader had just walked by the office door of the logistics manager for the _Matravekh_. It was always a matter of mild surprise that a criminal organization would have in place procedures and a proper façade, a nice squat building on the edge of town, close enough to the center to be prestigious, far enough to avoid attracting undue attention, four stories and twenty-five old-style offices of reproachable activity, with high ceilings and vaulted doors, even criminals could be aesthetes. He turned around, looking wordlessly at the shorter and rotund vulcanoid making his way to him, shaking a sheaf of papers in his right hand. "Another courier disappeared, that's the third in three weeks, and I have an urgent delivery. Didn't you say you had a new recruit going through the process?"

Jivak inclined his head at the man. "Indeed. Initial reports are very promising. On-time arrival is at 100%, in spite of not having an im'rath, security is also 100%, and productivity is 94%, but that again is related to not having an im'rath."

"Do you think she can do third-level?"

The Vulcan stared at the other man. "The metrics are adequate for a second-level courier."

"Yeah, well, I can't jump her too far ahead of the others. I'm already going to have a mini riot on my hands once they learn I'm bringing her to third-level. I'll tell them she's a Vulcan." Jivak nodded, that was always enough of a reason. Vrekaib looked at his padd. "I'll contact her now."

"If you wish, though I understand she's about to enter her rest period."

Vrekaib laughed out loud at the thought. A rest period. That was the best. Only a Vulcan could think a courier had a rest period. He crinkled his eyes in merriment. "Technicalities. Thanks for the help." He left Jivac staring at his back as he rushed to his office.

xxx

 ** _Somewhere in Federation space_**

"Yes, sir. Understood. Yes, sir. No, sir." The Cardassian captain turned gray as whoever was on the other side went on speaking. This should have been an easy mission, get a hold of the Federation cargo ship, secure the weaponized materials, get out of the quadrant. Instead, the only vessel that had come by had been a heavily-armed patrol ship, the Cardassian captain had quickly turned around and fled before they could be vaporized.

Now they had nothing to sell. The tips from Cathruusa were usually top-notch, ensuring them of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. All they had to do was help themselves, sometimes kill a few souls, and then feast for months on end from their cut. This was the first time the mission had failed, the tip had been bad.

On the other side of the transmission, the _Matravekh_ delegate had conferenced in the director of operations. The Cardassian captain had just turned gray as he realized that perhaps they wanted to get rid of him, this was how they would do it, give him a few failed missions then turn around and argue he had to be eliminated. He cut off the communication and looked around at his crew, not showing his suspicion. Did one of them decide he wanted to be captain? Who was it who had relayed the bad tip, were they in on it, trying to replace him as steward of the ship?

He forced levity in his voice. "Well, this one was a dud, men. Next time." It was his job as the captain to keep his team going upward and forward. He hoped the next tip from the _Matravekh_ was good, proving that he was still in favor and replenishing his self-esteem and his pocketbook.

xxx

 ** _Cathruusa_**

The triple knock at the door was repeated twice, rhythmically. Trip felt T'Pol stir, then get up and walk to the corner ionizator. She quickly threw on some clothes, not bothering to gather her hair. It was now well beyond shoulder length and he no longer wondered when she was going to cut it short. Obviously she wasn't ready yet, though it would have made no difference from the perspective of being a courier. Perhaps it would actually make things a little bit safer, not show so much that she was a woman.

The rhythmic knocking meant it was the syndicate, Trip didn't have to get up and worry about her safety, though he kept an eye open as she went to the door. There was a brief discussion, someone was waiting outside. Trip halfway got up but before he could make a move towards her, she was back, with a package and a puzzled look on her face.

"What is it?" He asked.

She was looking at the package in her hands, checking the address as if it was somehow unexpected. Then she looked up at him. "They are changing my route. They brought me to third level courier. They explained that they have experienced higher than usual turnover."

"Third-level? Does that mean you'll be delivering to headquarters?" Trip would have expressed how impressed he was but he remembered in time what they were actually doing, and for whom. Still, he was pleased, but not surprised, that T'Pol was moving up so quickly. They needed to eventually get entry into the headquarters, though, that was where the prize was.

T'Pol shook her head. "Only second-level couriers deliver there. But it does provide us additional opportunities for information gathering." She walked to the ionizator, starting to pull the rest of her clothes out of the equipment. "We have to go."

Trip looked at her, his brain not able to process what she had just said. "What do you mean we have to go? Go where?"

She raised an eyebrow, obviously aimed at the package she had left on the bed. "I have a delivery."

"But this is rest period! You're not supposed to go out again for another ten hours."

A raised eyebrow was his only answer. Trip plopped back on his back, they'd just had three hours rest, he was exhausted and in spite of all the fables about Vulcans not feeling fatigued or needing rest, he knew at least one who looked about just as much spent as he was.

"We need to go." T'Pol repeated. Trip suspected she was trying to convince herself as much as him. He sighed and rolled out of bed, punch-drunk with fatigue. He didn't know how effective that made him as a protector but hopefully he'd remain the only one to wonder.

xxx

 ** _Vulcan_**

"And thou still thinks he is a member of the Council?" T'Pau looked up as Sphelt entered her office. "Or she." She added. All sexes were capable of duplicity.

"The knowledge that Enterprise had the rebels was closely held and only the members of the Council knew." Sphelt felt the tips of his ears burn, as he always did when he was under pressure. "We have word from the Ridan that they were the object of a pirate attack, as expected. The pirates took hold of the cargo. My counterpart in the Federation," Sphelt meant Harris, the Vulcans couldn't quite comprehend the structure surrounding Section 31, "informs me that pirates attacked their decoy ship as well. That information too was limited to a very few."

"Whoever is sharing the information may become more careful as thou proceed with thy plan." T'Pau cautioned Sphelt.

Her security minister cocked his head at her. As if he hadn't already planned for it. "They will try again at the next opportunity, to confirm their theory. This time the ships will seem to have the promised cargo, they will realize it is unusable only when they attempt to employ it. The third convoy will once again be empty. Three failed deliveries in a row will put the tipsters in a delicate position with their handler. As they become desperate to prove themselves, mistakes are sure to be made."

"Unless the handler decides to switch allegiance earlier."

"In such event, death will designate the culprights."

"And we will have to start again." T'Pau replied, with a hint of frustration in her voice

Sphelt eyed her closely, not saying anything. They were few who enjoyed the cat and mouse game of catching spies. "We will be on guard from inception. Any contacts with the Romulans will be harder to hide." He reassured her.

But T'Pau's mind was on another matter. "How long to prepare an exfiltration?"

"It will take two to three months. The expenditure has to be approved by the council."

T'Pol turned around, looking straight at Sphelt. "No council. This is a matter of national security."

Sphelt felt his eartips burn anew. He lifted an eyebrow, careful no to utter a word. As head of all vulcan, It was T'Pau's prerogative to designate any matter as one of national security. Even if in his view extracting an operative and her lover stretched the definition.

T'Pau had turned back, looking at the red hills showing through the windows. "Is the timeframe subject to acceleration?"

Sphelt thought carefully before framing an answer. "Besides the actual travel time, we need to alert our existing contacts in Romulan space, develop a cover and arm a vessel. Two months is the minimum amount of time, barring any deviation in the variables." He paused. "I was under the impression the Humans had a better option."

"The Humans' approach has not been as successful as the metrics had indicated. Ambassador Soval will be here in a fortnight. He can provide a detailed explanation."

Sphelt eyebrows rose in surprise. "Ambassador Soval? I thought he was staying on Enterprise until the extraction happened."

"We cannot wait on his counsel as weeks turn into months," was the curt reply. Sphelt knew when his audience was over. He bowed and stepped out of T'Pau's office.

xxx

 ** _Cathruusa_**

Being a third-level courier was much safer than being a fifth-level, though Trip still felt a pang of apprehension when the guards at the door called T'Pol to come in and wait for the recipient's return. A wave of reassurance came at him over the bond, everything was as usual, she would be waiting, standing for as long as it took for the addressee of the package she held. These were better institutions, he didn't have to wait by her side, alert to every danger.

Trip crossed the street, keeping the building in his sights. He leaned against the nearest wall, watching the passers-by go, most taken with the day's business, a few enjoying the hot sun, the next week would bring another seven days of rain. After an hour, a short and stout older woman came out of the building, looking around, then crossed over once she spotted Trip. "Your master will be detained for six time intervals at least." She told him. "She bids you come back then and sends this for you."

Trip gratefully accepted the _kirrauk_ wrapped in what looked like wax paper. Third-level couriers may be paid more than fifth-level ones, but only when they were paid, and the _Matravekh_ didn't see fit to compensate its couriers often enough. Trip suspected that allowed for sizable savings on those unlucky enough to meet their fate in the dock runs or at the hands of their more ambitious peers. In the meantime, the two of them were left wondering whether to spend their few remaining credits on food or training. The gymnasium usually won over, there were always other slaves eager to share their meager fare.

He roughly thanked the woman and peeled himself off the wall, food in hand. He'd go to the public gymnasium for a couple of training sessions then back to their rooms.

"You!" The cry brought Trip back to his surroundings. He turned and saw two squadmen rushing over to him. Before he could react they were at his side. His instinct was that this was no good and he looked around feverishly, hoping T'Pol would come out.

"Yes?" He said calmly, perhaps the calm would spread to the policemen.

That didn't happen. The first one to reach him swatted the _kirrauk_ from his hands. It went flying, opening up as it hit the cobblestones street, its contents flying everywhere. Trip looked at the remnants of his lunch then back at the officer, not understanding.

"There's meat in this _kirrauk_ !" The Officer was barking, inches from his face. "Slaves are not allowed to have meat!"

"Someone gave me the _kirrauk_ , I didn't know." Trip was looking up and down the street desperately, hoping perhaps the woman would see the commotion and come out to explain. Or T'Pol. Where was T'Pol? There would be no issue if she were there. Overriding all, his main concern was that they not take his mask away. Taking a slave's mask off was a societal taboo, but if there was a fight, if he resisted, the mask might come off and all would be lost. He couldn't give them any reason to remove his mask. He just hoped they would accept his excuse and let him go.

Suddenly he was on the ground, his ear and head ringing from a well-placed blow. Trip consciously went limp. He would take a beating, but they wouldn't take his mask off.

The second officer hauled him back to his feet and struck him in turn, sending him back to the ground. Trip went limp again. The next thing he knew he was being hauled away, arms held behind his back. His jaw and ear throbbed. The squadmen dragged him to a _multim'rath_ , opened the hutch and threw him inside. The hutch closed, there were no windows or air and the sudden lurch told him they were on their way. Going he didn't know where.

The thought suddenly came that perhaps it was not T'Pol who had sent the woman, that a trap might have been laid. His mind screamed in fear for T'Pol.

* * *

 _ **Glossary**_

Cathruusa - space port on Reldair where Matravekh has its headquarters.

im'rath - the Cathruusan typical mode of pedestrian transport; looks like a disk with pedals; self-propelled

kirrauk - hand-held food, similar in concept to a sandwich, made from two half-moons of wafers with filling inside.

Matravekh - criminal syndicate financing rebel groups to destabilize Vulcan and the Federation.

multim'rath - communal vehicle

Vrekaib - logistics manager.


	31. The Forest 31 - The Chase

xxx

 _ **Hoshi**_

"We're being hailed, Captain." Hoshi half-turned to the command chair, her head pitched to the side as she paid close attention to the headphones. "Vulcan, sir, but on Starfleet frequencies." She looked up in puzzlement at Archer, then brought her attention back to the transmission, squinting her brow. Once she had the message loud and cleared she turned to Archer again. "A Vulcan shuttle is coming to rendez-vous with us. They're at the edge of clear transmission but I think I heard something about a file on its way to you." She looked at her console as a chime announced an incoming transmission. "Right on schedule."

"Transfer it to my ready room, Ensign. Lieutenant Reed, prepare for interception." Archer didn't finish his thought. He assumed they came to pick up Soval. Now that the bounty hunter ploy had proved to be untenable, there was no point for the Ambassador to wait around.

xxx

 _ **T'Pol**_

The hot sun was setting and the shadows were already spreading from one side of the street to the other. T'Pol exited the squat building lightly in spite of the hours spent waiting in immobility, looking around for Trip. Her gait slowed as she realized he was not around. She could not feel him either. The building had protection from telepathic transmissions but she should have felt the slightest tingle when she came out, letting her know the bond was reactivated. T'Pol stopped, looking from one side of the street to the other, trying to puzzle out what could have happened. There was no need to become distraught about the absence of the bond, at least not until all less daunting possibilities had first been explored.

A short and stout woman came out behind her, obviously an habituate of the compound. The woman nodded at T'Pol before lifting a shawl to cover her head making sure the pointed tips of her ears were well protected from the noises of the street and the dust all around. T'Pol stopped the woman as she stepped from the large sidewalk onto the cobblestones. "Excuse-me, have you seen," she forced the words out, glad that her hair covered the sudden greening of her ear tips, "my personal slave?"

The woman looked back at T'Pol as if first noticing she was standing there. Couriers were not worthy of any social notice. "There is no one here." The woman answered, as if that was not easily observed.

"Not now, earlier." T'Pol offered.

"I have not seen anyone." With that short statement, the woman was gone, already half across the street, looking from all appearances as if she were in a hurry to exit the scene.

T'Pol raised an eyebrow at the empty street, Trip would always have been in close surroundings, he would have had plenty of time to go to their quarters or to the gymnasium, if that was where he went, and come back wait for her.

Their quarters may hold further clues as to where he went and she proceeded there, very much aware that the third level run was a rather pedestrian walk compared to the dangers of the fifth level. Still, she kept her guard up, attentive beyond the ordinary to any motion from the street. But everyone was busy in the migration from day to evening and nothing disquieting took place along the way.

xxx

 _ **Archer**_

"Lieutenant Reed to Captain Archer." Reed exchanged a look with Hoshi. They'd started paging the Captain a half-hour ago, the shuttle was almost at the rendez-vous coordinates, but Archer wouldn't come out of his ready room.

Finally the door opened and a somber, thin-lipped Archer stepped on the bridge.

"The Vulcan shuttle is almost here. They've been in contact with Ambassador Soval." Malcolm opened when he saw the Captain wasn't going to say a word.

Archer nodded briskly. "Well, let's go salute the ambassador."

"And T'Agad?" Malcolm wanted to make sure she would leave with the Ambassador, nothing personal.

"Of course. We're not a cruise ship." Archer took a deep breath, looked around at the bridge, then at Reed. He rested his gaze on the wall of the elevator as they walked there to go salute their guest. "The shuttle is also dropping two Starfleet officers."

"Sir?" The bridge crew heard Reed clearly say.

"Replacements for Commanders Tucker and T'Pol." The doors of the turbolift closed on his words.

Hoshi turned and looked at Travis, who had turned towards her. She was speechless. "Did you hear?..." She started.

Travis looked like he had swallowed a bug. "I hope that's not what I heard." He replied, frowning at his console.

xxx

 _ **T'Pol**_

T'Pol let the door close softly, taking in at a glance that Trip was not there. There was no sign he had even been in their quarters. She walked into the bedroom, thinking. The next place was the gymnasium. He may have gone there and then perhaps gotten hurt, the people there would know where he went. He had told her the personal slaves looked out for each other, a brotherly culture born out of shared pain, though if they knew how different his situation was he wasn't sure how long he'd be alive.

The rhythmic knock was a surprise, deliveries on the third level seldom took place at night. She cautiously went to the door and opened it, noting the package propped up against the jamb, a thin envelope that weighed almost nothing. She looked at the envelope, an eyebrow lifting in spite of herself at the address, in a bad sector of Cathruusa, one she no longer had to go to since becoming third level. She turned the envelope over, trying to decipher its meaning. A single page of paper possibly. There was no shape inside, it didn't hold a chip or anything of that nature. Money more often came in wads and were reserved for first level couriers, unless this was a single high value bill for some lucky recipient. She laid the envelope on the bed.

There was no logical connection between the absence of Trip and the presence of the envelope and yet Trip would think they were connected. She looked down at the envelope again. Her Vulcan sense of logic was that these were two independent coincidental events and her Vulcan sense of duty urged her to go and make the delivery. Yet she had seen how Humans, her bondmate in particular, drew intuitive connections among the most seemingly disconnected events, often to propitious results. If Trip were here, he would think his disappearance and the envelope were somehow connected. She was alone in an inhospitable world and her main source of protection was not with her. It was logical to consider the risks of the situation in arriving at a decision. The Human way of thinking addressed a higher level of risk. Therefore it was logical to adopt their way of thinking and consider the two events might be connected.

If they were connected, the necessary deduction was that someone wanted her alone on a run in a bad part of town. Not doing the run would have her automatically sent back to fourth level, which would not be to the benefit of the mission. She needed to do the run. And she needed to stay clear of danger.

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

Trip balefully looked at the dust dancing in the light streaming from the tall crack in the wall that was supposed to be a window. At least as balefully as his one seeing eye could follow. The other was halfway shut from repeated blows. They had stripped him of his daggers but his half-mask was still in place. To think he would ever care to have this thing on his head. He gingerly extended a hand to touch the reassuring contour, wincing at the pain in his shoulder. The squadmen had worked him over good, his punishment interrupted when blood stared gushing out of his nose. "Gross!" one of the prison guards had exclaimed and soon after he was thrown in this cell. Seemed the sight of russet blood was more than the guards could stomach. Fortunately, they were not the most sophisticated, alien blood was just alien, they didn't know the difference between the pink of Klingons or the red of Humans.

They'd checked his credentials before throwing him in. The chip in his shoulder would allow them to find his owner. Except he wasn't sure they were going to contact her, he could only hope. For the rest, he assumed they'd claim he'd resisted arrest. He didn't know how things worked on Cathruusa, at best they'd let him go without a bribe. Otherwise T'Pol would somehow have to find the money.

The door to his cell opened and something was thrown in, a body, Trip soon realized, another slave like him. The man was half-conscious and moaning. It reassured Trip to see that he was not the only one subjected to a work-over. The other slave had gotten it worse. The man stirred and Trip waited for his full awakening. His thoughts went back to the _kirrauk_. All this for a sandwich. He couldn't believe he had just taken it without first checking from whom it came. All in all he was lucky, the _kirrauk_ might just as well have been poisoned. But who would poison him and why. After all he was a lowly slave, not worth the effort.

Unless they were trying to get at T'Pol. The thought brought him to his feet and pacing. He had thought about her not having the money to spring him from jail, he had thought about his jailing as a way to punish her possibly bring her back a level, he hadn't thought that without him by his side she was vulnerable. Third-level runs were more safe than fifth-levels, but that didn't mean much. He needed to get out of jail and make sure she was safe. Part of him realized he'd be pacing for quite a while.

xxx

 _ **T'Pol**_

T'Pol had carefully gone over their bare apartment, looking for any possible means of defense. The only weapon she could find was Trip's shaver, a small tool of limited use. She looked at the blades within before breaking the tool open. The blades were now directly accessible, nestled in their metal slots. T'Pol was hiding them in her sleeves when all of a sudden her head came up. She looked at the rough tin that served as their mirror. Quickly, as if the thought had just come onto her, she put the blade to her hair and started chopping.

The door to their quarters opened and a slim androgynous figure stepped outside, the cape tied at its neck in such a way as to prevent any attributes from taking shape. T'Pol scanned the streets around. The delivery address was an hour away. It would require closer to two hours if she didn't use the thoroughfares.

xxx

 ** _Reed_**

Reed stared slack-jawed as the two officers who had just stepped out of the transport trotted behind Archer, at least as slack-jawed as the Reeds could ever appear. Soval and T'Agad were gone, he to rejoin T'Pau's Council, her to seek isolation as an acolyte. The Ambassador had not had any reaction when he saw the two officers but Malcolm could have sworn there was the slightest glint of displeasure in the man's eyes. Perhaps he was projecting, but the Ambassador had to have been displeased that this is what they deemed fit to replace a Vulcan. Archer didn't seem any more pleased, his jaw set in at its most reprobative angle. He must have figured it was payback from Toussaint.

Not that there was anything wrong with the men on paper, so Archer had assured Reed. But there was such a thing as Starfleet-ready and apparently the new chief engineer was several donuts off any hope of reaching it. As for the science officer, Malcolm sure hoped he didn't compensate for his short stature with a predilection for dictature, as too often happened. Reminding himself to offer both men all chances to prove him wrong, Lieutenant Reed briefed them about ship's procedures and security measures while walking them to their quarters.

The reactions he received were in line with his expectations. Cold arrogance from the science officer and the chief engineer seemed to be more concerned with the mess hall location.

xxx

 _ **T'Pol**_

It had taken a while longer, she had by necessity stuck to the shadow, proceeding with great care, unless other people happened to stroll by, a couple or a group, in which case she would walk behind them, closely enough to seem a wayward member but not so close they would wonder if she meant them any harm. Finally, she was at the express lane that curved by the delivery address, her only choice a narrow footpath that hugged the roadside bed. There was nobody else there and there was no other passage. The warehouse stood beckoningly to the side, a hop, skip and a jump away. Even if she didn't look like the expected courier, assumptions would be made that she was the target. If the delivery was indeed a trap.

In a flash, she knew what she would do and started running. Behind her, she heard a muttered curse, and then the sound of footsteps running as well. It was a trap. There was no further doubt. She kept running all the way to the gate, stopping in front of the surprised guard who had started his night rest in light of the hour. He took the envelope from her and with a flick of the hand bade her be on her way again. Couriers were a necessary pest but nothing that anybody cared to be associated with.

T'Pol looked back behind her at the narrow footpath, the fifty yards back to the express lane well lit by the _lightalos_ , showing no one was there, the rest of the footpath drowned in the night shadows. She couldn't see her pursuer but she knew he was in there. The reason for Trip's disappearance was now plain, she could only hope Trip was held somewhere she could eventually access. But first she had to escape the current danger.

"Get going!" The guard's tone was rough, he half came out from his single-man _she'kluk_ , club in hand, ready to physically chase her if she didn't disappear.

T'Pol turned her head towards the guard, the movement allowing her optimal position for the sounds up ahead. She heard the loud breathing, faint and far in the back. Whoever was after her didn't have her conditioning. He was fifty yards up the trail and to the right, blocking the way she'd have taken to go back. She would go left instead, she knew that after two miles the footpath veered over the express lane then came back the other side. There were houses there, and brushes, many more places to seemingly disappear from her pursuer.

She started walking towards the express lane, seeming to go back the way she came, her footsteps veering to the left. But right at the apex of where he could reach she suddenly sprung to the right, taking off at a dead-run. She heard the muffled curse of her pursuer again, then the sharp taps of his soles as he gave chase, as fast as he could. She had the advantage of training and a head jump but the man behind her was definitely a vulcanoid and she heard the sounds of his feet creeping ever closer. She accelerate down the path then up the overpass over the express lane, the steady beat of his feet like an echo to hers. He had stopped gaining on her but was not falling behind and she could not tell if he was straining or if this was his cruising speed. The overpass dipped into the footpath on the other side of the highway and she jumped ahead, using the incline to further her speed. The sounds behind her fell slightly behind, perhaps a yard or two but it was a positive sign.

Soon small buildings appeared on the side, hardly standing shacks and rotted structures, but if she could be hidden for a moment from her pursuer, she might leverage it to find a hiding place. She kept running, putting to good use the training from Poryk, her pursuer still behind her. Soon they were at an intersection, then another, when she saw it, the weed tree pushing through on the side, its gnarled roots hugging the path, the low branches hiding what was on the other side.

The man dipped his head under the branches and kept running until he realized the only sound he heard was his own footsteps. He slowly came to a halt, panting for breath, looking all around, trying to figure where she could have gone. But the street ahead was empty. The next intersection was near and he ran there, hoping that somehow he would catch either sight or sound of her. The streets all around were empty. He retraced his steps all the way to the tree, looking up through the darkness but all he saw were unmoving branches. She could be anywhere. He shuttled back and forth from the intersection to the tree, looking as far as he could into the shadows between the few standing structures, once going down a promising alleyway until he realized that as he was wasting time looking for her she was getting further and further away from him.

The man swore and turned around, still panting. His head was covered with a soft hat, only his eyes could be seen. He spoke in his wrist and a few minutes later a _bim'rath_ came up the express lane, stopping a few yards from him. The man climbed aboard and the transport was soon gone. Silence descended once again on the footpath.

Twenty minutes later, a slim figure looked over the edge of the flat-roofed building closest to the tree. Once she checked nobody was around T'Pol gingerly came down the side of the building. The edge of the decorative blades on its facade was rusted to dullness but still she made sure none of them punctured fabric or skin. She stood, looking up the street towards where the _bim'rath_ had disappeared. There was something about the man's silhouette. She had not seen his face but she had a sense of having known him.

xxx

* * *

 _ **Glossary**_

kirrauk - hand-held food, similar in concept to a sandwich, made from two half-moons of wafers with filling inside.

bim'rath - two-person im'rath

lightalos - some type of lighting fixture typical of Cathruusa

she'kluk - hut


	32. The Forest 32 - The Pact

xxx

 _ **Somewhere in Federation space**_

The Cardassian captain signaled to his crew for complete silence. They were getting close to the coordinates. He didn't want to show his trepidation, trying to keep a tight grip on his command. The first man who challenged him would take a walk on the hull. Naked.

"We have something on the sensors." His second in command announced.

The captain turned halfway, talking from the side of his mouth. "Any sign of an escort?"

The second looked over at the pilot. Tense seconds went by before the pilot looked up again, shaking his head in. Elation, throwing an anxious look over at the captain. If he'd gotten it wrong, he may not survive this mission.

It wa with relief that the image of the federation cargo showed on his screen, a single ship, without an escort.

The cardassian captain was already out of his chair. T'es go, men, and remember. Everything that not boosted down belongs to us." They had to make double profit on this ship.

It was a happy captain the gave the order to leave the cargo ship. The loot was sizable, and heavy. Other than all the small stuff, they could sell the them as lots, they had hundreds of containers of activated crystals to bring back.

xxx

 _ **T'Pol**_

She opened the door on Poryk, wondering if it was a coincidence that he would be knocking right after she came back home. He looked at her quizzically. "You cut your hair."

T'Pol raised an eyebrow a hairbreadth, letting him know his powers of observation were unequaled. "Someone tried to kill me."

In one smooth move Poryk was inside, staring at her. "Were you able to recognize your attacker?"

T'Pol shrugged. "His face was covered. Do you have suspicions?"

Poryk cocked his head, mulling. "It could be so many."

T'Pols widening eyes let him know she had no idea so many people were intent on killing her. Poryk inclined his head in a shrug. "The other couriers are far from pleased with your rapid progression. There is also the possibility the real reason for your presence here was leaked." He looked around at the bare rooms. "I came to let you know that Commander Tucker has been taken to the central detention facility."

T'Pol's eyebrows pretty much flew off her head. "Jailed? But why?"

"Some minor infraction, a lesser charge has been filed. You need to obtain his release promptly, before they have the opportunity to uncover he's a Human."

"What time does the facility open?"

"It is open twenty-four hours a day, as a source of income for the local government. You must expect to be solicited for a bribe."

T'Pol eyed Poryk silently. A bribe. "Is that something you can help us with?" The rebels through Poryk had paid for their first month rent. Trip and her were doing to their last credit.

Poryk gave a brief shake of the head. "Jivak is on a mission and will not be back until the day after tomorrow. The finance committee will not disburse the funds without his approval. It is too dangerous for the Human to remain in jail for that time lest he be discovered."

"I must go to him." She would address the question of a bribe when it became necessary.

T'Pol would have left Poryk close the door behind him but he stopped her. "Before you go, Jivak has called an all hands meeting. Two days from hence, 2 hours before dawn. You need to be there and so does your bondmate." T'Pol threw a glance at him, grateful he hadn't referred to Trip as her personal slave. Poryk seemed to intuit what she was thinking. "Being... separated... from T'Agad has made me more aware of those lucky enough to belong to each other." He said, his gaze on the ground.

T'Pol understood the illogical hope that made him cling to T'Agad's absence as temporary. She needed to believe that Trip's absence was also temporary.

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

"What's that on your face?"

Trip touched where his cellmate was pointing, felt the crust of dried blood. The other man had woken up a couple of hours before, they had slowly exchanged the requisite information. Where they came from, and why they were in the cell together. He chuckled to himself. "It's a form of assurance." He hadn't wiped the blood off his face, hopeful that the nauseating sight would protect him from further abuse. There was no point volunteering for being beaten up. Obviously his cellmate was a vulcanoid, copper-based blood running the right shade of green.

Suddenly he felt a buzz in his head and looked up wondering what it was, before going back to the mutual discovery. "How long have you been on Cathruusa?" He raised his hand just as the other man started talking, stopping him. He suddenly remembered what the feeling was, it was the bond, T'Pol must be close. His entire body tended up response.

His cellmate looked quizzically at him, then towards the door. "Is that your woman?" He seemed disbelieving. "She shouldn't be there, slaves don't often get out of here. It was dangerous for her to come!" He whispered in a hush.

Trip couldn't argue that his woman was there, and he also certainly couldn't explain the situation to the man. He decided to divert the conversation. "Can you hear what they're saying?" He asked. Then when faced with the expected upswing eyebrow pointed at his ear. "Birth defect, goes with the color of my blood."

That definitely was an easier explanation then he had expected. The man got up, walked to the door of the cell, straining to hear through the forcefield. He nodded a couple of times. Trip felt he buzz of the bond dying down, he knew T'Pol had just left but he had never felt so hopeful. "So?" He asked his cellmate.

The man shook his head. "She left. I can't believe they let her go. You're a lucky man." He turned to Trip. "Perhaps. She must have been sent back to your owner, to negotiate for your release. I hope for your sake your owner chooses to pay, you don't want to know what they do to slaves whose owners won't."

xxx

 ** _T'Pol_**

T'Pol arrived at the _Matravekh_ headquarters right around sunrise. She had already figured that even lining up all their resources, she only had fifty-six of the three thousand credits she needed to have Trip released from jail. Waiting for Jivak to be back was not an option. If she could negotiate an advance from the _Matravekh_ she would be able to secure Trip's release before any chance discovery he was Human.

She stood silently looking at the impressive building. This was where, if all things went according to plan, she would eventually be called to courier, giving her unchecked entry to every nook of the building. It had been a long and dangerous month but things were looking up until Trip's emprisonment and the attempt on her life. If she could free Trip from jail their mission could back on an even keel. She stared at the building, taking note of the early comings and goings as the day started .

She walked to the front entrance, eschewing the courier-only sign and addressed he guard at the door, asking to speak to the person in charge. The guard sneered, looking down at her from his raised _shek'lul_ , but finally relenting that she was not coming as a courier but as an employee. He was unhelpful but not unkind and he sent his colleague inside to ask on her behalf. Several minutes later the other guard came back and took her inside, to a side office on the second level of the building. A short and rotund man got up when she approached.

Vrekaib had been working early, trying to figure out how he was going to maintain his planned income. "Hello I am Vrekaib." He looked appraisingly at the woman standing in front of him. So this was the Vulcan courier. He was struck by her beauty. "I'm sure something can be arranged." He said, closing the door of his office behind them, which he saw she noticed, once she had explained the reason for her call and what she was looking for. As he said it, he let his gaze roam meaningfully over her breasts. "We could reach an understanding."

"It is not logical for you to offer such a trade." She replied, not pretending she didn't know what he had in mind.

Vrekaib leaned back in his chair, watching her between half-closed eyes. This was no blushing maiden, she remained cool and calm. That made him even more interested. "And why not?" He said with a half-chuckle.

"Because the money you would advance will serve to free my personal slave who is oath-bound to avenge my honor."

Vrekaib frowned slightly. He could see that would be an issue. Lend her the money against favors and he would see his life much shortened. Not lend her the money and he would lose a courier. And he was already understaffed, something, someone, was taking out his couriers as fast as he could replace them and he had no idea who it was.

He leaned back in his chair, his interesting shifting from prurient to calculating. This woman was someone to reckon with. He suddenly had an insight of how this could all play out for his benefit.

"Very well", he said, seeming to think through the logical progression she had presented. Actually the thinking had been done much earlier, now he was on part two of the plan. "I will lend you the three thousand credit. Five credits a day interest."

"Those are usurious terms."

The female was smart, of course she was a Vulcan. Vrekaib smiled inwardly to himself. "Those are the terms. Your choice to accept."

"Very well, I will repay you within the week." T'Pol replies, trusting she could get Poryk to fund the money.

But Vrekaib raised a hand. "No, no. No need. You will not repay me. The loan will be between the two of us, for future services. We can discuss the terms exactly when I need to call it."

There was an expected silence. Vrekaib let the silence float. Better to give this one plenty of time to think about it.

"Very well," T'Pol finally said softly. It was impossible to calculate the odds that he would need her before the exfiltration happened. Perhaps that was what Humans referred to as hope.

xxx

 _ **Reed**_

Reed wondered why the quartermaster came to him. This should be normal bureaucratic procedure. "Yes, Specialist M'Boppe, is there an issue?" The personal effects should have been removed from the Commanders' quarters, neatly stored and labeled. Few on Enterprise, possibly nobody, believed anymore that Trip and T'Pol were traitors to the Federation. Malcolm made a mental note to speak to Hoshi and find out who the source of those un-rumors had been. Thankfully they were in the middle of nowhere, waiting for orders, and the secret was if not safe at least confined to the ship. In the meantime, the official story was what Starfleet claimed and it made sense that they replaced the two wayward officers as quickly as could be. In a way, Malcolm didn't regret they gave them seagull and donut boy. Competent and likable officers might have created splits in loyalty, whereas those two would be removed without anyone shedding nary a sigh or tear. He brought his attention back to the quartermaster.

"Sir, I have the inventory of their quarters for Commander T'Pol and Commande Tucker," M'Boppe was trying too hard to be matter-of-fact. "There are some irregular items and I was wondering which name to store them under."

"Let me see." Reed's curiosity was mildly aroused, he knew Trip had some unorthodox items in his possession.

"Here's the list, sir." The quartermaster handed Reed a padd, looking meaningfully at the Lieutenant. The list was short, there were only a few personal items that needed reattribution. Malcolm started scrolling through

From Commander Tucker's quarters:

\- 1 IDIC medallion

\- 2 printed books, Vulcan

\- 1 blue satin pajamas

\- 1 satin robe

\- 1 pair of high heel pumps

\- 1 low-cut dress, black

From Commander T'Pol's quarters

\- 1 conk seashell signed "To Trip, Souvenir of Florida, Elizabeth"

\- 1 University of Florida sweatshirt size L

\- 1 pair of men's sweatpants, grey

\- 1 Starfleet Academy T-shirt, size L

\- 1 pair sneakers size 11.

Malcolm saw at once what the issue was. Storing the items in the name of their rightful owners would require forms, signatures, and create a bureaucratic hassle. There may be uncomfortable questions later. He looked at the quartermaster, who was trying very hard to show no expression. "Well, huh, yes those are fine. What is your issue?"

M'Boppe looked supremely uncomfortable. "Uh, sir, even the dress in Commander Tucker's quarters?..."

"What the commander wears in the privacy of his quarters is nobody else's business, don't you think?" Malcolm smiled inwardly at the mental image of Trip in a little black dress. The gossip mill would be going on full speed by the time he came back.

"Sir?" M'Boppe was wondering if he heard right. Then, realizing that he had. "Of course, sir, I will store the dress in Commander Tucker's locker."

"See that you do, Specialist M'Boppe, see that you do." Malcolm couldn't wait to see Trip's face when the rumors reached him. What were friends for...

xxx

 _ **T'Pol**_

It was early afternoon by the time T'Pol made her way back to the central detention facility. Vrekaib had been considerate enough to give her the day off but she was too savvy to presume that included the night also. Other than to avoid his being discovered as Human, she needed Trip out quickly for cover. Whoever had tried to do away with her may try again.

The entire release process was an exercise in mindless bureaucracy, first filling out forms to establish her ownership of Trip, then more paperwork in a different office to accept the sizable fine, more forms in a third office to palm over three thousand credits, which could still be paid for with blood, before, after a sizable wait, she finally found herself in a spare room with a desk and two guards desultorily ensuring security. The guards looked her up and down, not bothering to get up from their chairs or to hide their ogling her figure. A strange feeling of irritation flooded her mind at the unwelcome attention, a foreign feeling, and she suddenly noticed the figure slumped on a chair in a corner. A reassuring mind tingle let her know it was Trip. He moved slightly and she saw he still had his mask on, though the lower half of his face was covered with dried blood.

"I came to pick up the prisoner," she announced to the guards, realizing as soon as she did so that this was not the accepted form. She briefly closed her eyes. Logic would have dictated calling Trip for what he was, her personal slave.

"The prisoner?" the first guard quickly pounced on the opening. "Who are you exactly?"

"I am his owner." She put her hands in her back, eyeing the guard levelly. The two of them stared at each other for a while. When he saw that she was not yielding, the second guard spoke up, eyeing her suspiciously. "Are you sure? It says here he's your personal slave but you don't seem too convinced. Who is he?"

T'Pol coldly returned the stare. "He is my v _eloklun_."

That set the guards laughing crassly. "Really? Prove it." They exchanged meaningful glances, enjoying seeing her caught in a lie.

T'Pol got up and crossed over to where Trip sat, putting a hand on his shoulder. The silent entreaty to follow her lead came through in the meld. Trip had no idea what the guards meant but suddenly her mouth was on his, kissing him long and deep, with some seriously sexual feelings. Even if he had been inclined not to, his body was willing.

The guards laughed again. "The _lokvum_ knows who the master is." There were a few more moments of churlish laughter, some comments that Trip couldn't catch. The first guard finally spoke. "The two of you are free to go." The second guard went to unshackle Trip from the chair, chuckling the whole time. He called out to T'Pol as they were leaving. "Let us know when you get tired of your toy. I'm sure we can find some other uses for him."

TP looked at him unflinchingly and turned back, not deigning to answer.

Trip knew he could have waited until they got back to their quarters but curiosity got the better of him. He took opportunity of a fairly deserted stretch to come closer to her. "What is a _veloklun_?" T'Pol seemed somewhat embarrassed and started walking faster. If anything, it just made Trip more curious. Carefully maintaining slave to master distance, he still managed to catch up to her and ask again. T'Pol suddenly stopped, seemingly having realized that they might end up breaking another unspoken rule. "It's a sex toy." She turned around and started walking fast again.

Trip fell into step, too shocked to react. After a few yards, shock turned to anger. It took another mile or so before anger turned to amusement. By the time they got home, he was silently chuckling to himself. Payback was a dish best served cold. She'd find out.


	33. The Forest 33 - The Question

_Note: A late chapter as I struggle with minor writer's block. Thanks for everyone's comments and reactions, they've all been very helpful._

xxx

 ** _Trip_**

Trip's mood turned sour once they were back in their rooms and he heard about the attempt on T'Pols life and the deal with Vrekaib. The whole thing smelled to high heaven. He sat quietly as T'Pol dabbed at the crusted blood around his eye and ear. "We should call a doctor" she started but Trip cut her off. "These are superficial wounds, I don't need to see anyone."

A rhythmic knock at the door made the two of them turn as one. "You stay here and rest" T'Pol started for the door.

"I don't think so, darling." Trip was already there, checking to see the package leaning against the jamb, then checking the address, it was a regular third level run. It would take them a while to get there. He looked at T'Pol suspiciously. "If that guy tried to kill you last night, that was 24 hours ago, how much rest have you had exactly?"

"Vulcans don't need as much rest."

Trip nodded in cadence at the well worn excuse. "Yes, so I've been told. This says deliver by midnight. We have time for a two-hour nap." He had also expected the eyebrow that raised in response. "It's logical," he added for good measure, arms crossed, letting her know he was going nowhere.

T'Pol finally lowered the eyebrow. "Very well."

Trip got up soon after she fell asleep, watching the rise and fall of her chest. He was no longer sure that he had made the right call by stepping on that Vulcan transport. He had gotten himself snookered like the worst tenderfoot, nearly costing T'Pol her life, and now this _Matravekh_ logistics manager had his hooks into her. T'Pol hadn't told him the details of what happened but he had a good sense of what the manager'd had in mind and the bond had filled him on the rest.

He looked around the spartan room, their few belongings. Being a Human made him a threat to her and the mission. And now things had gotten a whole lot more complicated. To hell with the mission. Section 31 and the Vulcans could find some other way to get the information. He needed to get her out of there somehow, to get the two of them out of this hellhole in one piece. He wasn't sure how but he wasn't going to let that stop him.

xxx

 ** _Enterprise_**

Travis caught the new science officer entering the bridge from the corner of his eye. The man seemed a little bit of a blowhard but Travis had seen plenty of seemingly insufferable individuals who couldn't be matched at the helm of a transport. If the man was really good, it didn't matter what his attitude was. But this... Travis looked over at Hoshi's station but she hadn't seen the officer, had no idea. She just looked back at Travis, interrogating him with a glance. Travis raised both eyebrows, trying to bring his eye to the side of his head and show her which direction to look at.

Hoshi was a quick study. She dropped the padd in her hands, exclaiming at the mishap and bent to pick it up, swiveling in her chair so that the first thing she saw coming up was the science station with its new officer. She almost dropped the padd again, catching it against her thigh in a reflex action. She turned back to her console, angling her head slightly so Travis could see her echoing eyebrows.

Archer had caught the song and dance between the junior officers, would have been amused if part of him had not been appalled by the sight of acting Commander Siegull a swagger stick tightly held under his arm. Sighing, he got up from the Captain's chair, thinking of how he was going to gently break it to the science officer that this was no part of the dress code on his ship.

xxx

 ** _Trip_**

Trip put his half-mask on, musing that if he ever got back to Federation space, he would remember Cathruusa as one long interval of sleep deprivation. They'd pretty much come back from a run, turned around, and now they were to go out again, this time to the rebel group gathering. The first thing he'd do when he got back was hit the sack, rivet a 'do not disturb sign' to his door, and sleep for weeks on end. Make that days. He wouldn't want to spend so much time away from his engines. He stopped in mid-motion, hand hanging in the air. His engines. That was the first time in a long time he'd missed them. Perhaps he was getting over Feurata and everything that happened.

He turned to T'Pol. "I should stay here. After all, these guys are waiting for the first mistake to do away with me."

She cast a long-suffering eyebrow his way. "And a dereliction of your duties would not constitute a misstep?" She was avoiding looking at him.

Trip narrowed his eyes at her. There was something off with her... It suddenly hit him with the clarity of a physical blow. She was scared. He took a step towards her when there was a noise at the door, as if something had just brushed against it. Trip was there like lightning, opening a door on a surprised Poryk. The Vulcan had his hand up mid-air, in a motion to knock on the non-existing door. He took the two of them in at a glance. "I will guide you to the meeting."

"What's this meeting about?" Trip was barring Poryk's further ingress. He'd pretty much had it with the rebels.

Poryk eyed him for a few seconds, seeming to weigh there was something new to reckon with. "Jivak came back from a two-day mission. He will impart the news at the meeting."

"Any chance this will mean T'Pol's help is no longer needed?" Trip felt T'Pol turn around in surprise behind him, saw in the slight widening of Poryk's eyes that the surprise was shared. He spoke to T'Pol from the doorway. "We've been here four weeks already, and there's been very little progress. How long exactly is it going to take to get you to work at headquarters? And now things have gotten out of hand. I don't think Section 31 or Soval quite understood the risks." He turned back to Poryk. "You're in contact with Soval?" The question was a statement.

"Not with him directly. Contacts are very infrequent and highly regulated."

"You have to let him know things are not working out."

T'Pol turned to him with irritation in her voice. "It is too early yet. Everything is proceeding according to plan."

"Everything? According to plan? Was it part of the plan that someone would try to kill you? Or that you'd be blackmailed by Vrekaib?"

"These are minor inconveniences." T'Pol replied. Poryk had looked up at the mention of Vrekaib, had his head cocked in reflection.

"Minor inconveniences?! Minor inconveniences!" Trip was fuming. "These are hard-core threats, and certainly not what you signed up for. If I remember, they sent you out to find who the handler and his contacts are, not on a suicide mission which this is quickly turning out to be. You need to call it off and leave the rebels. Personally I'm done. I'll find a safe place until someone can come get us. Us. Because I'm not leaving without you."

"Your bondmate is right," Poryk interjected. "There are many factors that were unexpected. It is difficult to properly manage a single set of outcomes, even more so when there is an exponential growth in the number of parameters. The logical response is to abort the mission." He turned to Trip. "However, since one cannot leave the rebels, there is no choice but to keep going as planned until the extraction back to Federation space."

Trip was flustered. "What do you mean one cannot leave the rebels?"

Poryk threw a glance at T'Pol who was busy studying the wall. He garnered there would be no forthcoming answer from her. "There is no leaving the rebels. One forfeits one's life upon joining."

Trip narrowed his eyes at T'Pol. Of all the things to conveniently leave off… He suddenly understood why Poryk was a double agent. He whipped back to him. "Is that why you... Yes, of course. But T'Agad?"

"An acolyte's life is sacred." T'Pol responded. "You never joined the rebels so you are free to go. They will not spend the time and energy to locate you in a safe place."

Trip turned back to her, frowning. There was no choice but for her to stay with the rebels and maintain her cover. He knew she was scared. Could things get worse? They always could. "I guess I'm staying too, then." He drawled, looking at her. He could feel her relief through the bond.

He was already out the door. They would deal with this later. "Let's go, we have a meeting to attend." He strode off into the night. It seemed every time he made his peace with things, there was something else that set him off again. The two Vulcans caught up to him and the three of them were soon walking abreast to the meeting place. It wouldn't have been the time to remind Trip of the six-step rule.

xxx

 ** _Archer_**

Archer glanced at the science station then looked back at the screen, making a concerted effort not to let his eyes stray there again. It came as a shock every time that T'Pol wasn't there, in her place a short Human officer. He would have gladly told him to shave the goatee but that was within Starfleet parameters. Once again he found himself wondering if Toussaint had selected the two worst reserve officers he could think of. A form of payback. Siegull was a blow-hard with a Napoleonic complex and Pantella could never fit in a Jeffries tube to make any repairs. At least there was hope he could get himself fit again, but Siegull...

"Captain?"

Archer hadn't seen the science officer approach his chair. "Mr. Seigull." He replied. He needed T'Pol and Trip back. The unwelcome thought crossed his mind that Starfleet would refuse to reinstate them, like they had refused T'Pol. Except that had played into the Vulcans' hands and they'd be too happy to go along with it. Scratch that. Pleased. They'd be pleased. Hopefully this time Vulcan and Section 31 would lean in and get Starfleet to reverse their position, once everything was explained. If it even came to that.

Seigull could talk ad nauseam about the most boring topics. Something to do with the theory of space travel and wormholes. Archer found himself really missing T'Pol. Even at her worst she was a hundred times better. She had never talked his ear off, even when she first came on board, dripping with superb arrogance. She may have been openly sarcastic ('Space is vast, Captain') but she had never bored his pants off. He forced himself to bring his mind back to Seigull, who was still going on, unaware that the Captain's attention was gone. Archer got up from his chair. "It's time to eat. Would you like to join me?"

Distracted by thoughts of a meal with the Captain, the man finally shut up and they exited the bridge. Behind them, the crew sighed in relief.

xxx

 ** _Somewhere in Federation space_**

"What is it?" The Cardassian Captain had just been awakened in the middle of the night shift. He was standing outside of his cabin, groggily eyeing the junior crewman who had knocked on his cabin door.

"I'm not sure, sir. A message, marked urgent and private. The pilot said you ought to know."

The Cardassian captain huffed and started striding towards the bridge. Fortunately his cabin was on the same floor, it was only a few seconds before the helmsman turned at his approach, pointing with his chin to the radio station. The captain sat on the high stool and started listening. His eyes grew wide, all remnants of sleep disappeared. "No, nobody touched anything." The entire bridge listened in on his half of the conversation.

"No..."

"I don't know what you're talking about. We met the ship, we loaded the cargo, we dropped it off at the agreed place."

"What do you mean 'vented'?"

"Every single one of them? Did you check?"

"I had no idea."

"You were the one who gave us the information. How d'you want me to know."

"What d'you think we did? Take it and replace it with subpar merchandise? You think I have the crew and ship for that kind of maneuver? And how would I pay for it?"

"I'm telling you, I had no idea. You can check everything about me. There's nothing hidden."

"Yes, I understand."

"Yes."

"No, there won't be another mistake made."

"No, sir. Over and out." The Cardassian captain replaced the radio headphones on their hook, turned around and saw the entire crew transfixed looking at him. "Get back to work!" he yelled. His step back to his cabin was heavy. The first raid had failed, this one seemed to have succeeded but the merchandise was no good. A suspicious thought stopped him on the way. What if the stuff was good? All he had was the _Matravekh_ delegate telling him they couldn't sell it, but how good was their word. Or did the man have a side business and sold the loot through back channels, then told the _Matravekh_ that the Cardassian captain was no good?

The captain's stomach churned, sleep would be impossible. Not until the next raid. That one had to succeed. Had to. Or they were all dead.

xxx

 ** _Trip_**

The knocks on the door were loud enough to wake the entire neighborhood. Trip opened and found himself faced with three mean-looking squadmen who quickly strode in their rooms. "Get up!" T'Pol was already up and dressed, looking at them with a surprised brow.

"Come with us!" The guards were rough but not violent. There was no manhandling, just three large men forming a tight ring around the two of them, marching at a fast pace until they reached the _Matravekh_ headquarters. Trip had only seen the building from afar, he took care to note the layout, trying to see as much as he could before they were brought to the back of the building and herded down stairs, then through doors, dank tunnels, and a second basement floor. None of it felt very good. Trip craned his neck, trying to catch landmarks around the bulky squadmen, anything that would allow him to find their way back if it came to that. All of a sudden he was shoved into a side room, losing sight of T'Pol and the other guards. Very quickly he was sitting alone, tied to a chair. He could still feel T'Pol's presence through the bond.

He had no idea what was going on. Time went by, and he wished he could tell how much time. A sensation came by over the bond, T'Pol letting him know it had been less than an hour. The door abruptly open on two goons and another man, that one clearly in charge. The three of them were soon towering over him.

"Do you know your master is working for Vrekaib?" The man in charge asked.

Trip shook his head. "No. She isn't. She doesn't work for him."

The man seemed amused by his denial. "Really? Don't tell me you don't know anything."

"I know what I know, and she's not working for him." Trip's heart was beating rapidly. What was it now? Did the man get in trouble with the higher-ups? He should have made her leave the rebels no matter what, there had to be someplace on that god-forsaken planet where the rebels couldn't reach them. Perhaps if they could locate her father. The guard next to him punched him in the gut, interrupting his thoughts. Trip sucked in air between clenched teeth. "I... tell you... she's not... working for Vrekaib." He stared malevolently at the guard.

"What is this then?" The lead man took a padd out of his pocket, shoving the screen under Trip's nose.

Trip didn't react. He recognized T'Pol's signature, that was the bond she had to sign to get him out of hock. "It doesn't matter what's that. She's not working for him."

A faint scream echoed behind the door and Trip paled. He knew that was T'Pol. She had just blocked the bond. Trip struggled against his bonds. "How many times d'you want me to tell you. She's not working for him. I would know. Now let her go!" He writhed against the ligations on his arms and legs.

The guards in the room laughed. "Of course, you wouldn't know, you're just a slave. Don't you worry, we'll get her to talk."

Trip shook his head again. "There's nothing to say. Do what y'want, but that's the only answer you'll get. From either of us. Now let us go."

The lead man looked at him piercingly. Another faint scream got everyone to look up, Trip started fighting the restraints again. The man seemed to come to a sudden decision. "That one doesn't know anything. Release him." He turned back to Trip. "I suggest you go home wait for your master. If you start lingering around here my guards will take that as a provocation. And then, there's no telling what'll happen." The goons nodded, grinning.

xxx

 ** _T'Pol_**

Vrekaib stepped into the cell. The Vulcan courier was tied to a chair, her head slumped. He approached and started methodically releasing the wires at her neck. She raised her head and looked at him. "Well, well, we'll." Vrekaib smiled at her. "Sorry about that. I trust you didn't tell them anything?"

"There was nothing to tell." Her voice was raspy from screaming.

Vrekaib grabbed the questioner's stool, sitting next to her. "Exactly. See, the beauty of it is you've officially been cleared of any association and the _Matravekh_ will never think to ask again. Sorry you had to go through it but it was necessary." A dark glare answered him. Vrekaib leaned over, patting her knee, mindless of the shudder that his touch provoked. "Now we can talk about the services you owe me. I'll let you rest for a while but then we have business to decide."

T'Pol coughed slightly, finding her voice. "Where is -"

"- your personal slave? Don't worry about him. We just wanted to impress on him that he didn't want to talk but he was released early. He's waiting for you at home. When you get back you can share the good news that you're officially a first-level courier." Vrekaib was smiling broadly.

"A first-level courier, but -"

"Sshh. That's what I need you to do for me and that's what you'll be doing. I'll explain in a few hours. But first, rest."


	34. The Forest 34 - The Mission

**_Vulcan_**

T'Pau looked up at the man who entered her anteroom. She couldn't see his face against the light outside but she knew immediately who he was.

"Thee are late." She stated simply.

Soval stepped into the light. "I was detained."

T'Pau eyebrows expressed her laughter at the double entendre. He looked thinner and haler, probably from his time in the I'Shlin world. His presence was agreeable. She noted a 0.7% relaxation in her level of tense readiness. Perhaps with him at her side learning to govern would be a less daunting task.

xxx

 ** _Cathruusa_**

"We need this committee to statute about the complication presented by the Human."

Jivak looked at Spivac without showing a hint of emotion. He should have expected the healer would take advantage of the higher level meeting. He had expressed displeasure from the very beginning. "The Human does not present a complication. There is no need for a decision."

"The Human is a threat. T'Pol was never asked to join the cause, she never took the oath. And she brought the Qomi along. The two of them are a vulnerability." We cannot afford any more losses." Spivac forcefully made his claim. The assembled committee heads would understand. He was raising the ghosts of their comrades gone, an oblique reference to Jivak as leader out of attrition.

Jivak rose from his seat. He knew when a challenge was given. "This group has tasked T'Pol with being a courier for the Matravekh. The Human is her protection. All of you were present at the time of the decision." Everyone would remember the scene, how he had presented T'Pol with the challenge. _"You must prove that your commitment is profound. You will be in the courier group. Couriers rarely live long. If you manage to survive and protect our interests, we will consider you to have joined the cause." He had turned around and gone back to watching the stars streaking by. The birds of prey had escorted them all the way to Romulan space, then left them to pursue the voyage on their own. The fourteen of them were on the bridge, Jivak piloting the ship, Poryk at the weapons, and Spivac watching from the side._ Jivak blinked back to the present. "Explain the claim that this presents a threat to our common interest."

A brief sneer shone on Spivac's face. "Are you asking because you cannot explain how being a courier helps our cause?"

This time the challenge was open and needed to be addressed. Jivak's voice was like steel. "A courier means access. Access leads to visibility. Visibility enhances prospects and resources. Once she has proven herself as a courier there will be other better-suited positions available for her talents. At that time you can present your argument about the Human complication."

Spivac realized Jivac had weakened his position, giving him what he wanted but at an uncertain future. "How will this committee know she has proven herself as a courier?"

"Our group is not supposed to be activated for another six cycles. If she is successful as planned, we will be activated before." Jivak firmly stated. "We can strike again, help destabilize Vulcan." He looked around the table. "Times of old will rise again, the moons will shine on Vulcan reunited." There was a chorus of nods and soft-spoken agreements in response. Then one of the cell leaders struck his heart in emphasis. One after the other, the leaders around the table struck their lower right quadrant in resonant agreement.

Spivac's masked another quick sneer before echoing the assent. He was not done. "So," he started "if four cycles pass without progress, this committee agrees to statute on the Qomi." He was inwardly pleased to be pressing Jivak.

Jivak's tone was contemptuously cutting. "I believe that is what I said." He looked at the rebels seated around him. "This committee can select to spend valuable time debating the fate of a Human or prepare for our next operation. One question deserving our attention is how the Romulans acquired knowledge of the details of our last mission. Joint operations have value but our group is not their tool."

Silence settled on the group as each member of the leadership committee considered the possibility of an informant. Jivak wasn't looking directly at anyone but Spivac heard the warning. He was the source of the information flowing back from the rebel group to the Romulans. If he reported the new plans, Jivak would have confirmation. He paid closer attention to the proceedings, his mind intent on how he was going to avoid suspicion.

Jivak eyed him coldly. He suspected Spivac was a Romulan agent. If he proceeded carefully he might actually be able to unveil him.

xxx

 ** _Vulcan_**

"Have we heard anything about the rebels?" The day had risen again on the red plains of Vulcan. Soval and Sphelt were in T'Pau's office, the large space slowly taking on the personality of its owner. The desert light was streaming from the bare windows, shining on a décor of browns, blacks, blues and oranges, the heat safely kept on the other side of the transparent aluminum. The austerity of the large-sized room made it seem even larger and yet it was belied by the trappings of power.

Soval turned to Sphelt. A Vulcan did not need to repeat the question. He waited for the minister of security to answer, reading in Sphelt's demeanor that things had not coalesced quite as planned.

When he talked, Sphelt did so in measured tones. "Our last contact was five days ago. There have been complications."

Soval saw that T'Pau already knew. "What is the nature of those complications?" His mind went straight to T'Pol's Human bondmate. There was an 87% probability that the mission would be threatened because of his presence.

"There was an assassination attempt on T'Pol. Poryk reports no knowledge as to what could have prompted it. Whoever planned it first made sure the Human was not there. So far he has been an asset to the mission."

Soval's other eyebrow was racing with the first. "Do we have any further information?"

But Sphelt indicated with a hand gesture that he was not finished. "The Human had been arrested on false pretenses. T'Pol attempts to have him released brought her within the... sphere of influence... of one of the senior Matravekh operators. A logistics manager, it seems."

Soval's lips were pursed. It seemed that the Human's presence was a threat as much as an asset. "Elaborate on what that influence is."

Sphelt took a step forward, coming directly within Soval's physical sphere. The two men eyed each other, one current intelligence officer and one former, saying as much by their silence as by what they were saying. "We were unaware of an internal network within the Matravekh. Our agents on Cathruusa are trying to ascertain what its objective is. Though the details are scarce we understand T'Pol was... recruited... within that network. As a result, she is now a first-level courier but also works for them."

Soval's eyebrows were crawling on the ceiling. That former aide of his had a knack for catching him off-guard. This was not as planned. "Explain the variance from the original assignment." His tone was curt.

"The variance is minimal. T'Pol is in a prime position to infiltrate the Matravekh, find out the identity of the handler and his sources. That was the first goal of the mission."

Soval almost scoffed openly. There was inherent danger in reaching an objective in an unexpected way. Did Sphelt think he was a raw recruit?

"No objective is reached when part of another's plan." The mission was spinning out of control. Already had spun. Sphelt knew it. Was he trying to prevent T'Pau from knowing the truth? Soval eyed the minister narrowly. It would not be the first time that the le-matyah was pretending to be a sehlat.

Sphelt cocked his head in agreement to what Soval had said. "We are still in the process of analyzing the outcomes. The logistics manager operation is an unknown variable and Poryk confirms there has been a rash of disappearances among the couriers. Our next contact is three days from now. We will learn more then." His ears started shining green. "Probabilities indicate T'Pol is in a position of extreme vulnerability. The first threat is the internal - and we believe unauthorized - operation within the Matravekh. This exposes its participants to death were they to be discovered. A most unpleasant death. The second threat is the disappearance of other couriers. It could be a sign that an adverse group is trying to destabilize the Matravekh. The third threat comes from the rebels. They will not tolerate their internal position being weakened as a result of her actions. Current odds of survival are 14%."

"14%?" Soval was not pleased. He had not agreed to send T'Pol on a suicide mission.

"We have six weeks before the odds become adverse." Sphelt was dispassionate. "They are lower for the Human." He added, as a positive point.

"We need to exfiltrate them." Soval commanded. There was no time for a more diplomatic approach.

Sphelt nodded in response, steepling his fingers in front of him. "We have outlined the exfiltration plan but still need to outfit a vessel and find a crew. It is unlikely we can do so within the given timeframe."

Soval turned to T'Pau. She stared back at him. "We are doing this outside of the Council purview or Minister Sphelt would be talking in months, not weeks."

Soval nodded. Human bureaucracy was refreshingly quick compared to Vulcan. Sometimes living three times as long was not the advantage it seemed.

xxx

 ** _Romulus_**

The _ohksaù_ tapped his feet on the stone steps outside, checking the shine of his tall boots. _Leleksaùs_ wanted all junior officers to be spic and span at all times. And it would definitely not behoove one to enter the intelligence ministry in any other manner. He threw the long end of his sash over his shoulder, stood straighter, made sure to project the image of an up and coming officer, and finally knocked at the door. The order to enter was soon to be heard.

"Centurion." The _ohksaù_ saluted smartly, his heels tapping with pristine clarity on the shiny floor. The _leleksaù_ absent-mindedly nodded a welcome, eyes riveted on the screen in front of him.

It was long minutes before he turned, looking at the _ohksaù_ until the young man lost countenance, grasping for the image of the proud officer he aspired to be. Finally the centurion took pity on him.

"How are we progressing with Vrekaib's network?" He asked, eyes going back to the screen. From where he was the _ohksaù_ could see a blurry image, a Vulcanoid, possibly delivering a package. It must be one of the couriers.

The _ohksaù_ swallowed, trying to quickly remember everything he'd heard, said, and done. He would start from the top. "The _kaksa_ _ù_ _s_ thought it would destabilize the Matravekh to denounce Vrekaib. They are trying instead to isolate his operation and prevent organic growth. We have initiated a campaign of attrition directed at the first-level couriers and those who would replace them. Initial results are favorable but... Permission to speak freely, Centurion."

A wry eyebrow saluted his effort. The Centurion nodded, smiling slightly. "Go ahead." It was acceptable behavior among the ranks to try and jump to the layer above.

"But this is Cathruusa, your highness, couriers come up as quickly as we can take them out." The Centurion was back staring at the screen. The _ohksaù_ wondered what he was finding so captivating.

The Centurion finally tore his gaze from the screen, looking at the envoy, his features devoid of sympathy. "Take them out... Are you saying our strategy consists in killing low-level initiates?"

The _ohksaù_ swallowed again, hoping he hadn't said anything that could brutally derail his career. "Those are the orders, sir."

"Whose orders?"

" _Kaksaù_ Berrutha, sir _."_

The Centurion gave a feeling of profound disapproval even though not a muscle on his face had moved. "Very well, I will speak with her. The new orders are to stop these activities, regroup and analyze other options."

The young man couldn't believe his ears. "Centurion?"

"You heard me. Killing the legs will not get us the head. And it will compromise our position with the Matravekh. Convey my orders to everyone involved."

The _ohksaù_ felt his ears star burning. That was a great honor. "You word is as will be." As he turned to leave, he hesitated.

The Centurion looked up at him. "Yes?"

"Should I disband the operatives, sir? Some of them took a long time to recruit."

"One does not disband what one has taken time and care to build." The Centurion raised a finger to emphasize his point. "I presume these operatives are otherwise employed?"

"Yes, Centurion"

"Then let them idle for a while. It will make our renewed compensation even sweeter. Leave."

The _ohksaù_ left quickly. The Centurion had already turned his back on him, his gaze riveted to the image on the screen.

xxx

 ** _Cathruusa_**

"We have a delivery for Vrekaib tonight."

Trip lowered the hefty table he used as a weight, interrupting his repetitions set. He looked over at T'Pol, who was peeling off the rest of her day's clothes. She seemed as unflappable as ever but he could tell the tension in the muscles at the corner of her eyes. Besides the ever-present danger of Vrekaib's little network being finally discovered by the Matravekh, it bothered her to be part of this brazen embezzlement scheme, delivering envelopes of ill-gotten gains from criminal activities.

"What cannot be helped must be accepted." He said the Vulcan reassurance in Vulcan to make her feel better. "It will be fine." A Human reassurance was called for as well. "Afterwards, we'll go to the _vifal'shab_." Three weeks as a first-level courier had already very much improved their daily lives. Bathing at will, enough food and a change of clothes. The lap of luxury. He couldn't suppress a smile as to how they had taken that for granted aboard Enterprise.

T'Pol caught the smile. "You are amused by it?"

He shook his head. "Uh-uh, I was just thinking about the ship. How easy everything was. Any news from Poryk?" His train of thought had led him to a different kind of ship, one that could spirit T'Pol and him away from Cathruusa, get them back to a safe place, away from life-oath rebels, serial killers, and the bloody claws of Vrekaib and the Matravekh.

There was silence as she considered how to answer his question. "We should see him in a few days." They had another rebel meeting coming up. Trip nodded. He understood that if Poryk hadn't contacted them, it was because he had no information to share.

T'Pol was pulling food items from the dispenser, another luxury, making two neatly separate piles with and without meat. "The group is preparing for another operation. It seems this one is coordinated across several revolutionary groups."

 _'Revolutionary'_? Trip would have used 'terrorist'. But labels were not the point. "What about you?"

"What about me?" She repeated, enunciating clearly.

He realized she was trying to puzzle out the meaning of his question. "Do the rebels consider you one of them? At what point can I stop worrying that they're going to turn on you like a pack of wolves?" Trip groaned as soon as he said it. "Figure of speech, Terran animal, hunts in packs." He quickly added, staving off more questions.

"I know what a wolf is."

Trip smirked. He went back to his calisthenics, refusing the opening to change the subject. Eventually, she'd had to answer his question. That was the cool thing about Vulcans, you never had to ask twice and they just couldn't not answer.

As if on cue the answer came. "Poryk assures me that all initiatives are fully staffed. It seems my value is best achieved by being a courier."

Trip curled a biceps ever so slowly, reaching for maximum compression, letting his thoughts flow. He wasn't sure what the rebels were getting out of it, they hadn't even asked for a share of her pay. And Vrekaib paid on time, as opposed to the Matravekh. Perhaps for them it was simply having someone who was at the center of things.

Her value was best achieved for their mission at least. They were ideally situated to identify the handler and find his contacts.

Except for the fact they were looking for someone nobody had ever seen. Even Jivak ignored who was directing him and his group. He would get dispatches, listen to messages, but there had never been face-to-face contact.

And except for the unknown killer who'd tried to attack her.

And except for the fact they were part of an embezzlement ring. Which meant they could be killed by the Matravekh or by Vrekaib. Talk about an embarrassment of riches. At least Vrekaib was a careful manager of resources, he had never sent her on a dangerous run. The man was no fool. He knew he was getting someone he could trust, skills, looks and brains, all in a single package. One day Trip would make him pay. For that and for his little demonstration of power, a foretaste of what could happen to them. He'd never forget how pale T'Pol had looked that night.

Yes, they were ideally situated all right. Trip switched to the other arm, trying not to think too much about the possibilities they'd get killed.

* * *

 _ohksaù_ \- 'eighth man', Romulan military level similar to sub-lieutenant.

 _lelehksaù_ \- Romulan military level similar to centurion.

 _kaksaù -_ Romulan military level similar to sub-commander.

 _vifalekshab_ \- Romulan-style public baths.


	35. The Forest 35 - The Handler

_Sorry things have slowed down a bit. Have been having some issues organizing the story plus was distracted by life. But things are looking up and I hope to have turned the corner in terms of storytelling._

xxx

 ** _Vulcan_**

It had been six days since Soval had last been in T'Pau's chambers, three days since they should have heard from Poryk. He alone could contact them, doing so would have been suicide for T'Pol and Trip always under close observation from the rebels. Soval chose not to be concerned about the delay. It was to be expected that communication would be haphazard at best, having to rely on the convergence of safety and availability for a single operative.

T'Pau was standing almost where he'd left her, a diminutive figure darkened by the glare from the windows. Sphelt was there also, as had become customary. Soval eyed him wordlessly, once again wondering if he were _sehlat_ or _le-matya_. He interrogated T'Pau with a glance, curious as to the continued presence of the security minister.

"Minister Sphelt still hasn't found the source of leaks on the Council. Perforce, all conversations to remain confidential must happen in this room." T'Pau explained. Soval nodded. It was becoming clear that just as many decisions happened in T'Pau's offices as in front of the Council.

The security minister's ears glowed green at the mention of his failure. Soval cocked an eyebrow his way to rub it in. "There are not that many members on the Council. It seems finding the source of information would be relatively simple." He knew how to be acerbic when needed.

"If members of the Council were the only possible suspects, our mission would already have ended." Sphelt replied, his tone strictly clinical lest he be accused of showing the emotions that his ears displayed. "It is not possible to replace centuries of the V'Las regime in the so many years T'Pau has been minister of all Vulcan. Loyalties run deep and hidden." He looked at both of them, seeming to find a new resolve in their silent attention. "We are still on track with our initial plan to lead the Romulans to think their sources were discovered and force them to take action."

All three being Vulcans, precision in details was not only encouraged but also welcomed. "Twice, we have provided erroneous information about shipments going through a sector which we know to be a locus of pirate activity. Each time the pirates showed up exactly when and where expected. The odds are zero point thirteen percent that this would be a coincidence. The first shipment was a ruse, designed to jolt the pirate network. The second shipment was designed to hand them a success but the cargo was corrupted. Odds are ninety-eight point eight percent that the Romulans now know these were lures. A third shipment is being prepared. Once it is intercepted as planned, probabilitical analysis will let the Romulans know that it is not happenstance. They will conclude their sources have been uncovered and will act accordingly."

"How are the pirates connected to the Romulans?"

Sphelt straightened further, pleased to share the theory carefully teased out by his intelligence services. "Through the Matravekh. Current hypothesis is that information flows directly from the Council to the Romulans. The Matravekh's level of sophistication is average, their attempts at spying would be readily detected. From the Romulans, information flows to the Matravekh. All evidence leads to the existence of a single operator, whom we think is located on Cathruusa, a trade city on Reldair, a planet not that deep in Romulan space. That is where the Matravekh's headquarters are located. That is also where the rebels went. Since the Matravekh is a criminal organization, it is logical that the Romulans would want to keep them at arm's-length from the Romulan seat of power. We refer to that single operator as "the Handler". The Handler then feeds the information to a vast networks of pirates. We were able to test our hypothesis as to piracy. Geolocation devices on the pirated cargo show they were taken into Romulan space. Then the connection was interrupted."

"And we think the cargo went to the Matravekh?" T'Pau was curious.

Sphelt turned to her. "Cathruusa is a large trading port. We think that is where the merchandise is sold."

"That is how the Matravekh finances itself." Soval nodded in understanding. "And how the Romulans finance the rebels." He added as an afterthought.

Sphelt cocked his head approvingly. It was always easier to speak to another professional. "Exactly. It is a very efficient system." All three nodded in silent praise of a brilliant design.

"Is the Matravekh also involved with the rebels?" Soval went on.

"Independent information we have received from the rebels lead also to a single resource, also within the Matravekh, that provides them with supplies and resources, and also directs their actions. It would be inefficient to have a separate handler. We infer the same Handler is also the relay between the Romulans and the rebels."

"What benefit is there for the Matravekh in having the Handler direct the rebel groups? They would have little interest in political upheaval." Soval asked. A criminal organization would not be operating out of charity or philosophical beliefs.

Sphelt put his hands behind his back. "The Matravekh finances itself through schemes of piracy and corruption. Uncertainty and chaos are assets to their industrious pursuits. The possibility of a united federation is their biggest existential threat." He did not need to add that having a Romulan-leaning regime in place on Vulcan would also be a benefit to their industrious pursuits.

"And how will your... cargo... operation solve the question of which members of the Council are providing information to the Romulans?" Soval would not relieve Sphelt of facing his failure.

But the security minister had had time to compose himself. This time his ears did not change color. "Once the Romulans have confirmation the failed piracy were intended they will take no chances and destroy the sources, and possibly the pirates that were involved."

"So you propose we wait and see who they kill?" Soval was somewhat taken aback.

Sphelt nodded emphatically. "It is only a matter of time."

Soval frowned. Time was the one element they had in short supply.

xxx

 ** _Cathruusa_**

Joru slowly rubbed the tip of his ear, as he did whenever he was faced with a problem with no clear solution. The latest report showed two new aberrations. The first time, he had attributed the simultaneous failure of two piracy operations to unhappy coincidence. The odds were after all so small that it could have easily been ascribed to a peculiar run of bad luck, the gods of the underworld signaling their unhappiness.

This time, the pirate ships found their targets but the cargo had been corrupted, could not be sold. Again, two shipments from Vulcan space and Federation space. The odds were becoming uncomfortable. He had experience leading men and mission. He had survived at the top of the Romulan heap, delegated to the Matravekh as the handler of all operatives. He couldn't have done any of it without a keen sense of where things were going. And his sense was that things were not going right. These were not isolated unrelated incidents.

Something was going on. The pirates did not know each other, he alone had the full roster of ships. Therefore collusion between the pirates was not a strong probability. The other option was that each one on its own had gone rogue. A possibility. It would be surprising, both the Cardassian and the Prycopirian were established operatives, with a reputation to maintain, kept fat and happy by their share from the Matravekh. Men like these changed because of inner motives, and neither of them had exhibited any robust moral structure. External motivators, such as greed, would be counterbalanced by their long years in the field. They knew what the Matravekh did to those who betrayed them. The probability was not great, but it couldn't be ignored either.

Joru steepled his fingers, looking at the numbers. Every hair on his eyebrows told him things were not as they should be. Could it be that somehow the lackeys in Vulcan and the Federation had gone wind of the Romulan operations? The possibility seemed too remote. Everything was set up so that all leads would lead to the Matravekh. No institution would think that a criminal organization would have loftier pursuits than short-term illicit gains. They would not connect the dots across space and function.

Still. He couldn't neglect the probability. Time would tell but in the meantime he needed to plan ahead.

xxx

 ** _Trip_**

The days had turned into over a week, and another week was looming on the horizon. First-level runs, runs for Vrekaib, the constant flow kept them from thinking too much. Trip's life had become one of waiting for T'Pol inside headquarters, daggers hanging from his belt, mask on his head, walking the halls of the offices where T'Pol stood, hands behind her back, until whichever official deign interrupt his day to accept her delivery. It seemed making couriers wait was an accepted measure of importance, the more senior managers being the worst offenders.

The only ones who didn't make her wait were Vrekaib 'customers', caught in the same web of corruption and treachery as they were, quickly grabbing their envelopes, if they were paid, or slowly handing them, if they were paying, knowing that every second spent doing so in the open was one more second they could be uncovered by the Matravekh, and their dream of riches evaporate along with their last breath.

While T'Pol was waiting endlessly in various offices at headquarters, Trip was able to roam the floor at will so long as he stayed within regulatory distance of the offices. When they came back to their digs at night, he would spend the time downloading everything he'd seen, methodically creating mechanical drawings of each part of the building that he'd been in. By force, some areas were getting quite detailed while others were still rough sketches. Neither of them had the ability to direct where she would be called. Still, day by day, yard by yard, Trip kept expanding their knowledge of the building and its accesses.

Trip blew on the plan he was working on, out of habit. That was not necessary with the thin strand of carbon fiber in a hand-adjusted holder he was using, a beauty of precision. He was already thinking about ways he could take it back with him to Federation space, he'd never had a drawing pencil quite like this. Finding the equivalent of engineering paper had taken more work. T'Pol slim pocket padd didn't have the CAD capabilities he needed, only designed to intake information but no access to any databases and certainly no drawing software. They'd finally found what he needed in the corner of an antiques dealer's store, whose backroom had become familiar through Vrekaib deliveries.

They kept the plans well hidden behind the copper mirror, the one thing no burglar in their straight mind would ever pilfer. Trip had considered moving away from the ill-repute sector where they had first landed but T'Pol had pointed out that given their position as undercover agents it was preferable to stay in an area where the arm of the law often came up short. Which meant they had to live with the ever-present risk of their apartment being pilfered by someone with less money. Trip looked at his latest blueprint, reflecting that his memories of Cathruusa would always be of rainy squalor or dusty grime, of too many crammed in not enough, of a society of warlords that gave little thrift to those left behind.

Putting aside his ruminations, he called to T'Pol. "There's something off."

She got up from her meditation space, moving over to him like a cat. Trip had noticed she was spending more and more time in the meditation corner and yet less and less time in meditation. That whole experience was weighing on her more than she cared to admit. Once again he found himself getting angry at the situation, felt more than heard her step slowing down.

"You are upset." She said, feeling his anger through the bond

Trip snorted. That was the world on its head. Now he had to articulate the various shades of his emotions, let her know it wasn't her. In Vulcans, anger was monolithic, hi-jacking their entire physiology. He still couldn't get over how an entire species could function almost without gradients in their emotions and still survive. It gave him a whole lot more respect for Surak and what Vulcans had accomplished, veering off the edge of the abyss.

Trip got up from the table where he'd been drafting so he could face her."You bet I am. There's a long list of people I'm angry at, starting with Soval for sending you on this god-awful mission, Archer and Reed and Starfleet, for the same reason, and then I'm angry at the rebels, at Poryk and at Vulcan, for not sending a goddam ship to get off this goddam planet, and at myself, for getting arrested and putting you in this situation."

"There is nothing wrong with the situation I am in."

"Really? Nothing wrong, uh?" He was eyeing her sardonically. It always amazed him how stubborn she could be in the face of reality. "I guess that's why you're spending almost every rest hour in the meditation corner, unless you thought perhaps I didn't notice you're having trouble meditating." He rolled his tongue along his cheek, waiting for her to try and deny. She looked down and to the right and he knew he'd had her. The victory was empty, though. He didn't want to win, he wanted to make things better for her.

"You said something was off." Her change of subject was akin to an admission.

He sighed, passing a hand in his hair. "There's something wrong about the building." He sorted through the papers, putting two of them side by side together. "See, from the outside the building has four floors, right?" It was an imposing building, if only for the _ba'lek_ -like blades jutting from it at regular intervals. T'Pol nodded, waiting for Trip to continue.

He laid the other papers he was working on in a column on the table, one for each floor. "It doesn't make sense. Added together, the four floors don't match the outside. We're not talking inches either, but feet. The building is taller than all the floors put together."

T'Pol blinked, looking at Trip. He knew she wouldn't be able to come up with a potential explanation other than that he must be wrong in his measurements or computations. Vulcans didn't do too well with free-form thinking. But it reassured him to have someone else there that knew he had an issue with the numbers.

xxx

 ** _Enterprise_**

"I swear, if I have to hear one more time -" Hess stopped talking abruptly, having just noticed Captain Archer enter the mess hall from the corner of her eye. Across the table Hoshi was too observant to ask any follow-up questions, alerted by Anna's sudden silence.

Instead she sipped her coffee, waiting the few seconds that would make her turning to look at the room seem to be a genuine motion. Archer was by the dispenser, getting ice cream. Chocolate flavored. He only ate ice cream between meals during times of stress. Chocolate was reserved for the higher levels of stress. She stared at the tense back, the broad shoulders seeming too broad. Obviously he was still upset about something. Since they were deep in space on the way to their next assignment, with nothing happening for days on end, she could only guess the stress had nothing to do with the ship. And based on the previous weeks, everything to do with a certain Officer Siegull. She wasn't the only one who wished T'Pol was back. Or Trip.

Hess was dying for Trip to be back in the engine room. She had just been regaling Hoshi with the latest goof from the new chief engineer. At least he was fairly inoffensive, a nice enough guy who had once known about engineering and could even still be adequate given the right motivation. Whereas Siegull... She had forgotten there were still officers like him around. Starfleet'd had the smarts to staff Enterprise with the best of the best and people like Siegull usually never made it even close. But somehow this one had passed through the net.

Archer left the mess hall and Hess finally exhaled. She laughed. "Phew, that was close. Me and my big voice. Pantella is not a bad guy, so long as he lets me do my job. I don't mind carrying his dead weight. And I don't want Archer to get into it with Starfleet. Next guy they send us could be like Siegull."

"Or they could send us a female engineer." Hoshi felt the need to point out.

"Nastiness is gender-neutral." Hess replied. "Plus if she's cute, I may be tempted." She laughed again, finding herself hilarious. Hoshi smiled in response. The good thing with Anna was that she never held anything back.

xxx


	36. The Forest 36 - The Initiative

xxx

 ** _Federation space_**

Third rank specialist Darte Oddens waited until his colleagues had left their posts and he remained alone in the offices of the gigantic seven-story-high warehouse that housed bank upon banks of servers. He nervously fingered the bamboo napkin from his lunch, tearing the fabric apart until it became cotton. His palms were moist. He had just been alerted to the fact that the second convoy had uncomforming material, they couldn't do anything with it. And it had already been sold, which meant that someone somewhere had an IOU with his name on it.

He swallowed, all thoughts of food out for the night. He needed to get the next one right. Starfleet didn't even know he existed, they couldn't have been playing him. It was only a question of getting the correct information. He activated the third computer, the one in his desk, that was directly linked into the Starfleet deliveries database, using his contractor access. Few paid attention to the shipment database but that was where he found all his information. A lot of information. He went through page after page of shipments of all kinds, from the mundane to the exotic, noting that some seemed to be duplicates. Probably some other smart aleck who'd figured how to turn data into riches. He let it be. He wasn't one to begrudge anybody else their fair share, they could never in a million years achieve the returns he could in a couple of clicks.

Darte tensed, focusing all his energy on skimming the information, looking for any relevant items that would make him stop and take notice.

There would be more than a few finds, and he only needed one. One convoy that had cargo his benefactors wanted. He'd rather think of them as benefactors, make believe they were positively inclined towards him.

Once he found the ship, he would double-check the routing plans, send them over. If someone had figured him out, they would put the most attractive listings at the top, as a bait. He carefully skipped the first findings.

If he picked randomly among the rest, it was certain to work. He would no longer have to worry and would just have to wait until an awe-inspiring number of credits drenched his personal account.

He simply couldn't fail. Not again.

xxx

 ** _Cathruusa_**

"The next initiative will be a joint operation with five other rebel groups." Jivak was talking to the audience of a hundred or so rebels, standing at a rectangular table at the head of the large meeting room. Trip looked over the assembly while keeping an eye on T'Pol. They'd been to a couple of these meetings already but somehow he had a bad feeling about this one.

"The other rebel groups have accepted the collaboration. We are preparing for an all-out offensive. We will spend the two upcoming cycles in preparation. The handler will coordinate weapons and supplies across the groups."

There was what would pass as a noisy reaction from the Vulcan crowd. Trip inwardly shook his head. These people wanted to go back to Vulcan barbaric civilization of old and yet they were as removed from it as they could ever hope to be. Hell, he was more savage by half than any of them.

He surreptitiously looked over over at the crowd, once again noting how few women there were. He'd like to believe it was because they were much smarter than the men. Part of him secretly despised the rebels, grown boys playing with men's tools, thinking that somehow that gave them importance and valor. Fighting the hunters on the I'Shlin planet was probably the only useful thing they'd ever done. He shook his head again, reminding himself that the sheer force of beliefs had often been enough to overcome many stable civilizations.

The conversations were held in soft voices and measured tones, too low for Trip to follow, especially in Vulcan. He'd have to ask T'Pol later what they were about.

But Jivak was not done. He spoke over the noise of the conversations. Trip could have sworn he had looked over towards him and T'Pol. "Companion of arms, I beseech you to heed my words. I have no further explanation at this time to give, I am not privy to our common objective. In two cycles, I will share what I learn." Trip straightened up, alerted by a sixth sense that something was up.

Dawn was breaking and the meeting was soon over. Some started leaving. T'Pol turned to do so and found her path barred by Jivak. Trip was already at her side, ready to take on the leader if he made one move against her. But Jivak didn't seem ill-inclined. He staredk at the two of them. "You will not take part in the preparations."

Poryk, their faithful guide, had joined them, standing by their side. He interrogated Jival with a raised eyebrow.

"It is more important for T'Pol to maintain access, let us know which groups are getting support and supplies." Jivak replied.

"I do not have access to the handler." T'Pol protested. Trip looked at her in surprise. Didn't she realize that it made her vulnerable if she didn't know who the handler was?

"Indifferent. You will not take part in the preparations." Jivak word was final. He turned around and walked to another group. They walked away in silence with Poryk.

In the now deserted meeting place Spivac went to the table where Jivak and the members of the leadership committee were now seated, ready to explore the workings of the intergroup alliance.

He quickly spoke before the discussion could start. "Your plan was successful, Jivak, we are being reactivated." Jivak and the committee looked up at him, waiting for the next declaration. "It is a fair assumption that this is not related to the T'Pol's position as a courier. Do you agree that we can now debate the fate of the Qomi?"

Jivak slowly got up, towering over the shorter man. "It certainly looks like you shall have your wish, Spivac, but plans for our involvement may yet be derailed. As our forebears used to say, 'talk has the molecular weight of words, action that of blades'." Several heads around the table nodded in approval at the old saying. "We will debate the fate of the Qomi when the plans have been fully laid." He addressed the small group. "Now let us understand how we can work as part of the alliance, and what our involvement shall be before it is imposed on us." He turned back to look significantly at Spivac. "These debates will be quite outside your interests as a healer. Perhaps your duties call you other places?"

"One never knows when and where a healer will be needed." Spivac countered, but he got the message. Oppose Jivak any further and he wouldn't be able to report on the rebel plans to his Romulan overseers.

xxx

 _ **T'Agad Story**_

The courtyard was cool, the waning suns' rays filtering through the tall slits up that lined up the stone chamber, the retreat rooms around it keeping the heat from reaching too far inside. Evening _ar'savot_ danced in the rays, shimmering like clouds of dust in their farewell to the day.

Soval looked up on hearing the faint sounds of bare feet on the stone floor. A figure stepped into the stone circle, clad in white, and walked all the way to where he was standing. Two dainty hands pulled the hood back and he was looking into the face of T'Agad. She automatically looked down. She had said on the I'Shlin planet that she could never look at him again and it seemed she would remain committed to her word no matter how far he extended a forgiving hand.

"You bade me come?" Soval asked.

She must have known he would come, no matter how exalted his standing. Beyond the white-robbed acolyte, beyond the shorn head, he saw the aide who had stood by him for so many years, a dagger between her teeth, perhaps, but she had been knowledgeable about the earthers, and helpful.

And he believed she could be helpful again. If Poryk and her could buck tradition and bond in spite of her status as an acolyte, he could buck tradition as well and hold that her sacred standing did not make her unreachable to the needs of her nation.

"Have you heard from Poryk?"

Soval cocked his head, inquisitively looking at her. The yearning for a bondmate would always trump tradition and culture. On the other hand he was indeed her _pe'le'ut'el_. It was true also that she was forbidden to set foot outside the temple. She may have been granted her own form of imprisonment, acolytes were needed and revered, but justice required she be incarcerated until she was deemed to be fully redeemed.

He spent almost an hour in the courtyard, talking to T'Agad, outlining what they had heard from Poryk and how they were still waiting to hear, guiding her towards the truth that his work for Vulcan and the Federation was a first step on the path to renouncing his past as a terrorist. Perhaps the two of them would eventually be reunited, each wrapped up in its own path to redemption, learning to live with each other amid the pain of what they had done.

There was no way to compute those odds.

xxx

 ** _Cathruusa_**

They went back to their rooms in silence, walking some distance, half-hidden in the meager daylight, before hailing a _multim'rath_ , another luxury. They couldn't talk out loud. Trip felt through the bond that T'Pol was tense and anxious. He could understand. Her being part of the preparations would mean being taken away from her work as a courier, all a positive. Getting her away from Vrekaib and whoever had been killing the other couriers, even if they had to spend more time with the rebels, well, that seemed like a fair trade. And Vrekaib would be silenced by a word from above, told it would be only for a couple of cycles, it would not be the same as if they simply turned their back on him, he had a sense that, like with the rebels, their lives would be forfeit if they ever did.

"What was that about? Why doesn't Jivak want her as part of the preparations?" Trip whirled on Poryk as soon as they were in their rooms. He'd held himself in check the whole way back, not wanting to create a commotion and cost them even more, but now he wanted an answer.

Poryk just looked at him tranquilly, as if he were considering an interesting specimen. Once again Trip found himself thinking that for people who wanted to go back to their barbarian roots, the rebels as a whole were a damn civilized bunch. "One explanation is that T'Pol's role as a courier was to last only until the group was once again activated. The group has been reactivated and every rebel will be participating. If T'Pol is not asked to join, it could mean she is not accepted as a rebel. Once the leading team has rendered their decision, her life and yours will be forfeit."

Poryk's tone was emotionless, as befitted his species.

Trip's was slightly less so. "Just spiffy!" He'd kind of known this wouldn't be a simple a 'sorry things didn't work out and good tidings to you' but exactly how many hit lists did they need to be on? As if it wasn't already bad enough that they had to deal with the Matravekh and Vrekaib. _What else could go wrong, now_?

"When will we know?" T'Pol interrupted his thoughts.

Trip blinked, looking at her, gears turning in his head. "Yes..." He looked back at Poryk. "How much time do we have if that is the case?" It was one thing to be a target but a little advance notice would help.

"Nothing will happen while the preparations are ongoing. There would need to be an assembly meeting and a decision made. It is doubtful that any committee meetings will bother with such a detail. Once the preparations are complete, though..." Poryk didn't need to complete his sentence.

Just before he'd answered, Poryk had thrown a quick glance at T'Pol. There was a weird feeling Trip couldn't shake. He suddenly looked up as he realized it came through the bond. He narrowed his eyes. Yes, there was more to this than what the Vulcans were saying.

"And... What other explanation is there?" Trip asked, couching the question as a Vulcan would. Now all he had to do was wait until Poryk could no longer resist the urge to answer.

Poryk blinked, apparently surprised that his answer had not been enough for the Human. Again, there was a quick look at T'Pol. Trip was starting to get annoyed. "There is no other explanation." Poryk finally said.

"There is another possibility." T'Pol countered. She knew the misguided Vulcan tendency to underestimate her mate just because he was a Human. "The odds are really small, though, but it could be that we are kept apart because of the nature of the target."

"What d'you mean? Why would it matter to them, or us, what the target is?"

Poryk eyed him as if from far away. "It is true that we are not sure how to interpret what happened." Trip noted the 'we' in passing, but he wasn't going to make an issue of it. More important was to get an answer.

"Well, how about you take this Human through your interpretation? I might surprise you." Trip's voice was dripping sarcasm.

"The logical inference would be that the target is known to us." Again, T'Pol intervened.

"Known to us?" Trip's brain was going full speed through all the places T'Pol and him had ever visited, but other than Vulcan and Earth, he couldn't find one that he'd consider was 'known' to them. Then it hit him like a ton of bricks. "Oh..." He sat heavily down on the bed. "They wouldn't. How?" He questioned her.

"We do not think that Enterprise is the main target, the rebels have acquired familiarity with the ship and know is too highly defended." It was Poryk's turn to talk. Trip was really getting riled up about the 'we'. "But the involvement of several rebel groups leads us to think that the target has both increased significance and defenses. Enterprise seems the logical choice but it would be suicide for the groups to go directly after the ship."

"But the inference is that Enterprise will somehow be involved, either because they're defending the main target or..." Trip let his thought hand in the air.

"...because they are the target of a suicide mission." T'Pol finished.

"I can see why they wouldn't trust us with that information." Trip sighed. "Though I can't see how we'd get word back. We're in the middle of nowhere, in a hostile space, and the rebels are constantly breathing down our necks."

"It is more likely that until T'Pol is fully and officially admitted, they cannot have her participate." Poryk explained.

It all made sense. "That's the reason for keeping her aside." Trip agreed. "In short either it's that we haven't made the cut or that we haven't yet made the cut. We're cooked either way."

"Though the second option is the better alternative, if I understand the culinary reference." Poryk pointed out.

Trip almost laughed. Vulcans and their literalness. He got up, now worried about his friends, the crew. "We have to get word out." If he could only find his way out of this planet, he'd personally run right to them and let them know. And fall straight into the waiting arms of the rebels, he realized with a smirk. They needed to be more careful than ever. "Probably not the best idea, considering."

Poryk's raised an eyebrow. The Human's acumen was both surprising and unexpected. "Communication has always been challenging and it will be even more so. With the upcoming initiative everyone will be under heightened scrutiny. I will try my best to let Vulcan know."

Trip nodded silently. He imagined everything was being communicated through code words, or these being Vulcans, subtleties such as inflections in the musicality of a sentence. He knew how they had developed an unparalleled proficiency in couching information in ways nobody else would ever had guessed. A Vulcan trying his best was a pretty sure bet.

He was starting to find more and more to like about Poryk.

If he'd just stop talking about himself and T'Pol as 'we'.

* * *

 ** _Glossary_**

 _ar'savot_ \- minuscule flying insects, roughly similar to a cross between fruit flies and gnats.

 _Darte Oddens_ \- Third rank specialist, outside contractor, source of Federation intelligence to Romulans.

 _multim'rath_ \- form of Cathruusan private transportation.

 _Pe'le'ut'el_ \- male chaperone for bonding proposals.


	37. The Forest 37 - The Wait

_xxx_

 _ **Soval**_

"Ambassador." The tall Vulcan got up from behind his minister-sized desk, walked over to where Soval had stepped into the cavernous room. The security offices were carved directly into the mountain, thousands of years had hardly smoothed over the rough stone of the walls.

"You asked for my presence." Soval closely eyed the minister. He sill was unsure about Sphelt.

"We have heard from your agent in Romulan space."

Soval put aside his misgivings for the time being, noting in passing that Sphelt had specifically referred to Poryk as 'his' agent. It was only logical. No self-respecting intelligence service would rely on a single agent in enemy space. His thoughts went to T'Agad. The news would be pleasant to her ears, but she would want to know more. "What was the reason for the delay?"

Sphelt exhaled, a signal which in times of old would have meant an upcoming assault. Soval refrained from taking a step back, once again weighing who exactly was the security minister and whether he could be trusted. T'Pau seemed to fully trust him, which only served to heighten Soval's distrust. But Sphelt's display of temper was not with Soval. "The rebels have been activated again. They are preparing a large-scale initiative, we have little details on the objective."

That explained the delay. Poryk was on the weapons committee, he would be both busy and under intense scrutiny. It raised Soval's curiosity as to how he had even gotten the word out. "Was that the message?" He would proceed step-by-step, pressing Sphelt to disclose everything he had knowledge of.

When Sphelt finished speaking, Soval's brow was creased with lines of worry. "We have to let T'Pau know." He said it as one would throw a gauntlet on the floor, waiting to see how Sphelt would react. But the minister stimply inclined his head. "I agree, but there is more." The minister hesitated, the tips of his ears greening. "T'Pol and Commander Tucker may be compromised."

Silence and two soaring eyebrows greeted Sphelt's statement. When he saw no question would be asked, he went on. "Our sources have confirmed that the logistics manager is at the head of a vast corruption network. His name is Vrekaib. The scheme is ancient and as easy to dissimulate as it is to uncover. A range of providers splitting their mark-up. His position as chief of logistics allows him to collect without raising suspicion and the splits prevent anyone from reporting on the scheme lest their lives be forfeit."

So that was why Sphelt had asked to see him alone. "And you posit that because T'Pol was forced to serve his network she has been compromised?"

Sphelt steepled his fingers in front of him. "There is some evidence that the Romulans are wise to Vrekaib's scheme. Probabilities are sixty-eight point three percent that the disappearance of the couriers is related. It is only a matter of time before they eliminate Vrekaib and his network."

"Including all the couriers that work for him." Soval would have exhaled himself but for the control acquired through long years of diplomatic meetings. The Romulans might as well have known she was a secret agent. He had warned Sphelt there was inherent danger in reaching goals through unexpected events. Sometimes decision trees sprouted errant branches due to uncontrolled variables. He would have been hard pressed to predict that T'Pol would become entangled with Vrekaib corrupt network.

There was a moment of silence. "We need to get her out." Soval was aware that he had said it before.

 _xxx_

 ** _T'Pol_**

"Your bath is ready." Trip announced as he walked into the waiting room where his master was waiting for him to be done. The room was fairly full, it was later in the day, when those who could afford to came to take advantage of the cleaning facilities, the warm water-like _masa'yu_ that washed away the days dust or rain, depending on the week. It had become their routine to stop at the _vifal'shab_ right after a Vrekaib delivery, try to cleanse off their bodies from the weight of what they had to do. Their bodies and their minds. Technically her body and her mind. Slaves were not to bathe, and certainly not with their owners.

T'Pol replied to his announcement with an imperious nod and stepped out into the hallway. Trip guided her to one of the individual baths, towel over his arm. The open door revealed the rectangular basin of _masa'yu_ , so like water and so unlike it, but not distasteful to Vulcanoids. T'Pol looked at him, staring straight into his eyes and with a deft gesture undid the belt of her wrap, letting it fall to her heels before stepping into the room. She shot him a look as she walked by that took his breath away.

Trip's response was immediate, the towel on his arm doing a poor job of hiding it. He hated when she did that. Kind of. He watched her go in, regal with grace. There were dimples where her buttocks met her back. The door slowly started closing behind her. Trip swore under his breath, quickly glancing right and left that nobody was there, and slid in just before the door could lock.

T'Pol was a couple of steps deep in the bath and Trip found that all he wanted was to be the water around her thighs. T'Pol looked back at him in a silent invite. Forget the steps. Trip dropped the towel and jumped directly in. In no time his mouth was on her breast and she was ripping his mask off. Finally there was no master and no slave, they could go back to being T'Pol and Trip.

xxx

 _ **Archer**_

Archer stared at the screen. He'd done too much of that lately. Staring, waiting, but the vidcoms that came were never the ones he hoped for. What he wanted most of all was for Harris' or the Soval's face to show up and tell him it was done, T'Pol had fulfilled her mission, Trip was with her, and the two of them were coming back as feted heros, at least as soon as that little charade about traitors and what not was cleared with Starfleet.

But the screen remained stubbornly dark, nobody was calling. Instead Enterprise was going to Gamma Verda III, a planet far-flung a the edge of the known space, looking to possibly join the Federation. After what happened on Feurata, caution was the word. Enterprise would wait in close space until the ceremonies were done, the final vote was taken. The Federation has been trounced before, its finest ship stuck in orbit, its captain and crew under fire on the surface, they were no going to let it happen again. Though it would never again happen in quite the same way. Archer ruefully mulled that hindsight was not very predictive of the future.

He looked at the stars streaking past his ready room window, sighing. It would take another few weeks before they were where they were going. And still, no word from Soval or Harris.

xxx

 _ **Harris**_

Harris saw the blinking icon on his screen, letting him know someone was once again accessing the procurement database. They hadn't been able to figure out who and how, but his team had put a bell on every query hitting every database. That had been a monumental undertaking but finally all queries had unique identifiers. The bleep told him that someone was accessing the databases who did not have official power. The man, or woman, was a cyberexpert. They had been looking for weeks and still couldn't place where he was gaining access from.

Harris smiled his cat and mouse smile. All unidentified queries were reconfigured to hit the same screen, haphazardly enough not to discourage the operator from trying, keeping him engaged in a battle of wills with the machine. Everything was ready for the third shipment, they could now go to the next phase of the plan. The data feed was being reconfigured each time the unauthorized query hit it, bringing up the same information under various covers, easily hidden in a thicket of similar line items. That was the information the operator was looking for. Or rather it was the information they wanted the operator to have. The name, time, and place of the third and final cargo.

Once the delivery failed and the Romulans were once again confronted with bad intel they would deduce their sources had been compromised, their reaction easily predicted. Romulans always reacted the same way. All the Section had to do was keep an eye on the thousands of individuals who intersected with Starfleet in their daily lives, and investigate any untimely death.

Daunting but not impossible. The Vulcans had already computed the odds. And to think that Starfleet had dragged their feet on getting Vulcan experts reassigned to their proper posts. The fools.

xxx

 _ **Soval**_

Soval was not surprised when he saw Sphelt standing by T'Pau. It had been one point seven days already since he and Sphelt had talked, time enough for Sphelt to inform T'Pau of the details of their conversation. She got up when he entered her chambers, coming to stand within a few feet of him. Soval had a sudden insight that she was more alone than anyone could fathom. He knew about loneliness since his bondmate had died. He had found a respite in work and glittering functions but he didn't think that world would be fit in T'Pau's eyes. His gaze went to Sphelt, whose constant presence was becoming an irritant. T'Pau didn't need a _pe'le'utel_ by her side. Jarred at where his thoughts were going, Soval quickly refocused on the security minister.

Sphelt had already started talking. "We have word from Poryk. There is nothing new from their side, still no identification of the handler. But Poryk reports the rebels were directed to make contact with five other groups, to optimize supplies and resources. An important initiative is being prepared. We have reached out to Section 31 in the Federation."

"Why Section 31?" It was the first mention Sphelt had made of the Federation agency. When the two had talked one point seven days before, the involvement of the Federation was a remote possibility at best.

Sphelt put his hands behind his back, and Soval understood that the order came from T'Pau. "My services have analyzed all the variables," he paused, "some of which cannot be shared, and outlined three potential scenarios." He paused again.

Soval wondered if he had shared these variables with T'Pau. "But your assessment of the outcomes is not the same." He prodded.

Sphelt inclined his head in agreement. "The most easily identifiable scenario is that the rebels have decided not to accept T'Pol as a member. Odds would seem to weigh towards this explanation, but it is actually the least probable." Sphelt saw Soval's eyebrows start their ascension and quickly added. "I am not able to share the underlying information." He was already going on. "The second possibility is that they are not being involved because T'Pol is not yet an official member of the rebels. Given the constraint on resources for the rebels since the Feurata incident and the fact Commander Trip's technical knowledge would be a great asset in any preparation, odds are not in favor of that scenario."

Sphelt paused again. "The third scenario addresses the possibility of a connection between the Starfleet officers and the target." Soval noted he had referred to T'Pol as a Starfleet officer. So what had initially looked like the most unlikely possibility had now turned to be the most likely. His eyebrows had started going up even before Sphelt started speaking again. "The possible connections are Earth, Vulcan, or Enterprise. The only potential target is Enterprise. Even if five groups of rebels allied together were to breach planetary defenses, any vital targets would long have been secured. But a ship can be vulnerable to a concentrated attack."

Soval nodded. Every member of the Council knew the location of the safe places. Whether on Earth or Vulcan the government would relocate but damage would be collateral. "Enterprise must be warned." He said out loud. The reference to Section 31 was now self-obvious.

"Networks are being put on alert, all extraneous personnel are being recalled." Sphelt concurred.

That was more information than required. Soval grew suspicious. "Are you delaying the exfiltration?"

"Priorities have shifted." Sphelt's ears didn't turn green and Soval knew the decision had been made well before he joined the meeting.

T'Pau glanced at Sphelt before turning to Soval. "Times are troubled. Loyalties to the V'Las regime run long and deep. The Council is on the right path, the government is one of logic, but we are dealing with centuries of entrenched subversion." She turned away from both men, looking longingly at the desert outside. "It would be illusory to believe that all institutions can follow the new regime overnight. As so often happens, the most ingrained V'Las loyalism can be found in the security forces. Minister Sphelt needs all those he can trust to prevent internal rift and potential coups." She turned back to Soval. "He has few men of confidence to send to Romulan Space and those are needed here on Vulcan."

Soval, blinked, looked at the minister of all Vulcan. "What are the implications for T'Pol and Poryk? And Commander Tucker?"

Sphelt responded too glibly for Soval's comfort. "Poryk's mission was always one of long duration. T'Pol's mission has not changed. She needs to identify the Handler. Expectations are that she will eventually uncover the source that guides the rebels. "

"Eventually…" Soval let his voice trail. Time was the one element they did not have. His brow creased as he contemplated the paradox.

xxx

 _ **Travis**_

Travis threw an agonized look at Lieutenant Reed, hoping the security officer would catch on to the helpless begging in his eyes and come to his rescue. He could have sworn that Reed saw him but instead started busying himself with his console, avoiding looking up at the main screen. Travis sighed inwardly and smiled outwardly at Siegull, who had posted himself at the corner of his console and was drowning him in antiquated theories of astrodynamics.

Travis wondered how well it would go if he pointed out to the science officer that pontificating about charting a route through space was one thing, actually doing so was another, and that for all his advance degrees in astrodynamics Siegull would find himself quite perplexed when the computer vectors didn't get him to the right coordinates. But he was a junior officer and it would not be a good career move to contradict a senior officer like Siegull. And Reed wouldn't help. So he listened patiently, almost feeling Hoshi's eyerolls next to him. She was so lucky Siegull didn't have a degree in acoustics or she'd find herself on the receiving end of what he thought were enlightened and enlightening lectures.

Travis found himself missing Trip. The engineer knew about charting a course and at least their conversations were exchanges of viewpoints, not one-way recitations of theoretical facts that were often shown wrong by the eddies of space. He also missed T'Pol, she never talked down to him or made him feel like an insignificant idiot. Or park herself by his console and start spewing theories that were obsolete without regard for his experience.

Travis started mentally counting the seconds. Archer was in his ready room and he would get no help from Reed. At some point Archer would be back and Siegull would high-tail it to the science console, always mindful of making a good impression on the Captain.

He really missed Trip and T'Pol. Without them there was nobody left that didn't treat Archer like he was some kind of god. Except maybe Hoshi. And perhaps Reed, though the Brit would never let on. Travis tried to pay attention to what Siegull was saying, wishing the Commanders would soon be found. While Siegull kept talking, he started mentally drafting a com to his brother and mother. It had been a while since they had warned him nobody was hunting for the prize. Perhaps things had changed. There would have been enough time for some unsavory character to assemble a crew and finance a ship.

He really wanted the Commanders back.

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

"All done!" Trip put the razor away with a flourish. Chief engineer, double agent on a secret mission, and now hairdresser extraordinaire, yep, that was good old Charles Tucker the Third. He wondered what his dad would say about it. T'Pol shook her hair above the basin while Trip collected what fell on the floor. He had been oddly comforted when he'd first seen her with her hair short, and further when she decided to keep it that way, as if somehow it made their lives as Starfleet officers seem less far away. He could think of his engines and watch her almost regulation haircut and feel they were not so far from their usual routine, even if the illusion lasted only until he took notice of their shabby lodging.

"Vrekaib wants to see me tomorrow."

Trip's good mood crashed in an instant, his heart beating loudly in his chest. He saw T'Pol briefly close her eyes and realized his anger and fear were coming at her unchecked through the bond.

"Sorry!" He used breathing exercises, struggling for control until he found a level that while not perfectly zen would at least not make her flinch. "And? Did he say what this is about?" He was trying hard not to think of the basement and whatever Vrekaib's sick little mind had planned for her.

"I need to go."

Trip knew that T'Pol was giving him the she hoped final statement in the argument they should be having. It was fine by him. They could skip steps if she wanted, it made no difference. "I'll go with you."

"Vrekaib has ordered I be alone."

Trip frowned, crossing his arms over his chest. "That's not going to happen."

He could see the surprise in her eyes, followed by uncertainty. The thought of disobeying a direct order made her supremely uncomfortable. "I don't understand." She retreated behind her wall.

Trip could have smiled, he knew her so well. "You're not going anywhere alone. You may have duties to attend to but so do I. And my first priority is your safety."

"Vrekaib would not—

"Are you talking about the guy that blackmailed you? Or the one who had us dragged to headquarters? I'm not even going to mention the less savory things he's guilty of?"

"If I don't go alone -_" T'Pol started again.

"If you don't go alone" Trip cut her off again, "Vrekaib will have to accommodate. You're the best thing that's happened to him and his little scheme. I'll go with you."

A raised eyebrow answered him. T'Pol briefly closed her eyes again. "Very well."

Trip was surprised. He had expected her to put up more of a fuss. That meant she was worried. And that made him worry further.

* * *

 _masa'yu -_ foreign element found on Reldair, similar to water but not distasteful to Vulcanoid species, used as a medium for cleaning.

 _vifalekshab -_ Romulan spa, similar to small scale Roman therms


	38. The Forest 38 - The Fifth

xxx

 ** _The Handler_**

Joru spoke slowly and distinctly in the voice magnetizer on his desk. The contraption changed his voice every time, never twice the same way, making it impossible for the leaders of the rebel groups to get a sense of familiarity or recognize him. They didn't even know which sex he was, sometimes the contraption had him talk in the tones of an affluent woman. It was necessary to build the impression of a large roster of Romulan agents overseeing all the groups, never let them realize that they had the advantage of numbers.

He sighed into the mike, as he was wont to do when he dealt with the Vulcans. Always asking questions, needing to understand the why and the hows, going all theoretical on him and then reverting to the viciously practical. Their leader, Jivak, was so unlike his predecessor, Yonakai. Yonakai was a purist, running hot with the fires of his beliefs, blind to being manipulated through small artifices. Jivak was a soldier, way too focused on what made sense to him, on getting the better part of the deal for his forces. A better soldier, surely, but a much worse rebel.

Joru spoke again, slowing his voice even more. He liked to think that gave his words added impact. "It is too early to reveal the exact plans for Enterprise but be comforted that even a ship of that caliber can have difficulty with a concerted attack."

Jivak frowned at the communicator. Either the handler was a man of limited experience or there was something he knew that Jivak didn't. He had had enough experience with the Handler. The man was a strategist. Logically, then, he knew something that Jivak didn't. It was Jivak's duty as leader to find out.

"If you would have us attack Enterprise we need fast ships, well-armed. An enemy of that caliber will require a measure of stealth. Is that what you have in mind?"

Joru smiled, showing his top canines. "Enterprise will never know what hit it. The Humans are weak, helping the weaker, not realizing who they think as prey is actually their hunter."

"Enterprise helped the rebels and yet we are not weak." Jivak replied, trying to draw the Handler out.

That drew a chuckle from the Romulan. "Left to your own devices, you most certainly were. Thankfully the Empire always has redundancies."

"What redundancies are you speaking of?"

Joru wasn't going to let the leader ask more questions. ""It is too early for specifics. We can talk at the next cycle. In the meantime, you have the information for the weapons and supplies, first-come, first-served. Coordinate with the other groups." He cut off the communication with satisfaction. The Vulcan always asked too much.

Jivak scowled at his communicator. It was not logical for the Handler to evade his questions, but then Romulans seldom were. More importantly, he needed to understand what the Handler had meant with redundancies.

xxx

 ** _Harris_**

Harris swore under this breath. If his interlocutor hadn't been light-years away, he would have barged into his office to let him know there was no dilly-dallying where Section 31 was concerned. "I understand what you are saying, specialist, and I agree, this is a highly irregular request. I will make sure you get proper authority and certification. But right now I need to make sure that shipment goes nowhere. If you give me thirty minutes, I can call you back with an admiral from Starfleet. Your name will be logged by his office and you will have direct access whenever you need it."

Harris smiled to himself. Overseeing hundreds and thousands of shipments from all over, with more power than anyone should have, the man was probably on the take. Small stuff, not worth the attention of the Section. He'd bet the last thing the specialist wanted was his name to be known by Starfleet or a direct line to any Starfleet desk.

That worked like a charm. His interlocutor became most agreeable. Harris knew that the man had been hoping to get some hard credit recognition in exchange for delaying the shipment but the mention of Starfleet had convinced him that wouldn't be happening.

His glee was short-lived. He frowned as he listened to what the man said. Harris sighed. "Yes, I understand, we'll have to pay storage fees. Cash, The pilots will arrange for the transfer." So the warehouse manager had found a way to extract his pound of flesh. Some things just couldn't be helped. Still small stuff, considering.

Once he was done with the formalities, he straightened up from the screen. Now he would call Sphelt, let him know they were able to stop the shipment. The Vulcans had requested the delay. Harris whistled softly, realizing that must actually be a first. Apparently some internal cleaning within the security personnel ranks. Though to be truthful, the delay was not unwelcome. Now that Enterprise might be a target they needed all the time on the Federation side to figure out a playbook.

Harris sighed again, next on his list was to contact Enterprise. That would mean contacting Archer. And Reed. Another tense confrontation in the making. He'd never been Archer's favorite. He'd been even less so once he shared the news from the Vulcans. Who'd have known the mission to find the handler would turn into such a can of worms...

xxx

 ** _T'Pol_**

Vrekaib saw that the courier had brought her personal slave. He frowned momentarily at the exception to his orders but good mood soon found him again. This could actually be a good thing. He bade the man wait in the corridor while he took her in his office, aware of the dagger-like eyes pointed at his back. He almost chuckled. Yes, this was shaping to be a good night indeed.

The headquarters were mostly deserted, only a few night couriers around, and the skeleton crew that oversaw the affairs of the Matravekh off-hours. He escorted her to a seat, treating her like a normal woman. With the added bonus that doing so brought him in close proximity to her. He leaned in exactly two centimeters too close as he helped her to a chair, letting his breath brush her ear. She pulled away as she could, eliciting another smile from him. He lifted a haunch and sat on his desk, enjoying the presence of the beautiful woman.

She stared straight ahead, like a marble statue, giving him the same attention she would pay a mangy _ronpaktu_. He passed his tongue over his lips, savoring everything about the scene. If she wouldn't notice his presence, he could take advantage, couldn't he? Leaning forward, he exended a hand, almost touching her but not quite, letting his finger draw her contour in the air, down her jaw, then her arm, finally trailing down to her breast, still not touching.

She turned to look straight at him. "Take your hand away."

Vrekaib chuckled, flashing a wolfish smile. "I could show you a good time. All you have to do is give the word. You know, all the women I've been with praise my performance as a lover. I could make you see worlds you've only imagined."

"Ignorance suits me better."

Vrekaib laughed silently. "I have to say, you're one of my favorite couriers." He turned around, walked around his desk. "That is why you will now deliver to the fifth floor."

"The fifth floor?" T'Pol was non-plussed. There were only four floors in the building. She remembered Trip's drawings, his concern that the calculations were off. So her bondmate had been right all along. She was pleased but not surprised.

Vrekaib turned with a smile. "Ah, yes. You wouldn't know. The fifth floor. That's where our Romulans partners manage their side of things. It cannot be seen from the outside of the building. Only very few have access." When he saw she was not going grace him with a reaction, he went on. "It is a matter of metrics. Metrics and trust."

At that she threw a glance at him. "Trust. You require nothing in exchange?"

Vrekaib smiled again. He had chosen well. He got up from his desk, circling the large office. "Ah, yes. Of course this is not just me acting for your interest, there are no free gifts." He stopped circling, turned to her. "Becoming a first level courier required some... hmmm... compensatory services for my own private interest. I couldn't give you access to the fifth floor for any less. Of course, you will keep up with my deliveries, at night. Other than that, perhaps we could trade for your _veloklun_?"

That earned him a dark glare. "What exactly do you mean?"

Vrekaib laughed silently again. "Oh don't be so coy." He paused, passing his tongue on his lips. "I have a secret to share. I'm the one who had him thrown in jail."

T'Pol nodded. Yes, everything was becoming clear. "Even the prison guards?"

"On my ledger, obviously. I wanted you to work for me, needed to buy your acceptance." Vrekaib turned back, started circling again. "What you do with your personal slave is your business, though I would beseech you to try the local flavors." He chuckled again. "As I told you, everyone finds them quite pleasing."

She flattened him with the coldest stare, not deigning to answer.

Vrekaib turned serious, went to his desk where laid his scabbard, picking it up and wrapping it around his waist. "You'll have to excuse my little charade, I wanted to make sure you could not be corrupted. You have no idea what lengths couriers will go to for the best assignments. Men and women." He pensively checked the edge of his weapons. "Like the one you are replacing. At least I know where this one went. Well, all the pieces that were left."

Two eyebrows lifted at the statement. But Vrekaib was not paying attention to her, playing with his dagger. "The best assignments must be earned." He looked up at her meaningfully.

"What do you require from me?"

Vrekaib nodded. That was more like it. "As I said, that is the Romulan floor. You will be posted there from morning to night in the offices of any manager who requests it." He went over to her, leaning closely in, looking at her face. "What I need from you is your attention to everything that is said and done." He straightened up again. "There is a possibility the Romulans' overseers are aware of my private business. You will be my ears in their offices, let me know if anything comes up that would threaten my existence."

"And if I refuse?" She asked.

Vrekaib almost snapped in irritation. It quickly subsided. Of course, she would resist, that was to be expected. That's why he chose her, wasn't it? He looked straight at her, amusement visible on his face. " _Velokluns_ are easy to replace."

T'Pol briefly closed her eyes. There was no longer any pretense she would pay him back the money he'd lent her. However Vrekaib had come by it, he knew Trip and her had a relationship other than master and slave.

He opened a box on a shelf, pulled out a wafer thin tag. "Here, this is the pass to the fifth floor. The slot is on top of the floor panel in each elevator." He closed the box. "Time for you to fetch your personal slave. I'm sure he must be wondering what you're doing, alone with me this whole time. Let him know it was enjoyable." He passed his tongue on his lips, showing his three lower canines as he smiled.

xxx

 ** _Jivak_**

"Healer! I will speak with thee." Jivak called to Spivac as he saw the man ahead of him.

Spivac waited, half-turned around towards Jivak, his eyes giving no hint of apprehension. "What would you talk about?"

"The preparations." The tall leader and the short healer were standing across from each other. "We are following the guidance provided by the Handler?"

"We most certainly are. Romulans are masters at the art of war." Spivac straightened up, pleased with the direction of the conversation.

"You have great admiration for the Romulan Empire."

"Our cousins are noble fighters."

"There are many others in space with the same claim."

That earned an open scoff from Spivac. "You would compare a Romulan warrior and an I'Shlin _thelas_ , or a soft-bellied Human?"

"You know the saying, 'Do not underweigh your adversary's blade unless you are ready for its early harvest.' There is much to learn from others."

"Much to learn? I doubt that is the case. I have seen them in close quarters and have not left impressed."

"I do not remember you being unimpressed when you were running from the I'Shlins."

Spivac whirled on Jivak, barely containing himself. It was accepted among the rebels to show one's emotional state, as would have Vulcans' forebears before they were misguided. "A healer must remain standing for everyone's benefit. Rest assured there is always an underlying reason to my actions. Always." He sneered, a look that was as disagreeable as what it conveyed. "The Humans you are so impressed with. A bunch of misguided weaklings, soft and replete with food. Easy to fool. Treating us with pity, never figuring we were the threat they needed be wary of."

Jivak narrowed his eyes at Spivac. That echoed the words of the Handler. He had long held suspicions that the healer was a Romulan agent. "Where you see pity, I saw compassion. I wouldn't underestimate the Humans."

"Clearly. You were impressed enough to let one live here freely. Isn't it enough that T'Pol sullies our race with a Qomi?"

Jivak blinked. It had taken Spivac's words for him to notice what was not so carefully hidden. "Her private life is hers to run as she chooses. And his life is hers to forfeit if she so decides."

"So you will have a female act for you?"

It was Jivak's turn to bare his teeth at the healer. "I have said before, it is not time yet. Not during the preparations."

"Yet you won't you let T'Pol and the Qomi work alongside us. What use is he to us? Is it because Humans are such fine warriors?" Spivac goaded the leader. "Or do you know they cannot be trusted given our objective?"

Jivak blinked again, another piece of the puzzle had fallen into place. "You know Enterprise is our objective." That knowledge was only for the leaders, and Spivac was definitely not part of any inner circle. He was indeed working with the Romulans.

Perhaps sensing he had said too much, the healer bared his teeth slightly in challenge. "What other logical reason would there be keep former Starfleet officers from the preparations? The Qomi is an engineer, his skills would find ready use." He paused, watching Jivak closely. "If one could afford to trust him."

Jivak chose to respond. "The Human did not join us by choice but he has knowledge that is invaluable. Enterprise is heavily guarded. Once he realizes the danger to his crewmembers he may be brought to collaborate. His insights into the ship's systems will serve our cause well."

Spivac looked up at the taller man. "Your strategy is lacking. The risk is too high that even a weakling Human won't betray his comrades. My path is better."

Jivac let mocking amusement soften his mouth. "You have a path?"

"I left a gift for them in our wake."

Jivak understood this was the redundancy the handler was hinting at. "What kind of gift?"

It was Spivac's turn to sound mocking. "A honing device, actionable from light-years away. They'll never find it. I told you the Humans were soft. Giving us the run of the ship, when we have a blood oath to the Romulan Empire."

An eyebrow raised in surprise. "You had such a device with you?"

Spivac came closer to Jivak. "There are many on Vulcan who are on our side. Nobody ever checks a healer's tools."

Jivak nodded absent-mindedly, letting a subset of his mind follow the rest of the conversation with the healer. The rest was chewing on the information. Spivac must have gotten hold of the device through the Nahr. None of this would be news to Vulcan.

Spivac was still speaking. "The Qomi should be gotten rid of quickly. All those who cannot be trusted should be dealt with as well."

Jivak knew he meant T'Pol. "When the preparations are done." He said and stepped away abruptly. There was no need for formalities when the conversation was over.

xxx

 ** _T'Pau_**

"I will speak with thee."

T'Pau eyes widened visibly, a glaring departure from her usual countenance. She turned to the speaker, glad the other Council members were preceding her, nobody had witnessed her abysmal lack of control. "Ambassador Soval." She tried to infuse her tone with the chill of desert nights, let him know his interruption was not welcome.

The ambassador did not look embarrassed in the least. He just stood there, thumbs in the belt that cinched his robes, waiting. T'Pau had the sudden strange sensation of being considered by a le-matya as its next meal. She glared at Soval. Something must be wrong with the room temperature controls. She felt the chill of a shadow. She looked around for Sphelt, for anyone, but the Council members had already departed, the guards were waiting on the other side of the door, she was alone. The two of them could have been standing in the middle of the desert.

Perhaps sensing her inner turmoil the Ambassador spoke first. "I want to speak about the transport." The tone implied there were other topics he wanted to speak about.

The question of transport was neutral ground, T'Pau could indulge the speaker. "The Council has voted to delay the shipment until all potential variables have been assessed. The transport will be arranged when this has been achieved."

"There are other options." Soval started. T'Pau heard the words that were spoken, precisely mechanical, while her soul soared under Soval's burning eyes.

* * *

 _ **Glossary**_

 _ronpaktu_ \- a small furry animal with a tail, lives in packs, cat-sized.

 _thelas_ \- a kind of feline, dog-sized.

 _veloklun_ \- sex-toy


	39. The Forest 39 - The Progress

xxx

 _ **Archer**_

"Again?!" Archer's could only stare at Harris in disbelief, wondering what he had done to the universe that Enterprise was again the prize in some kind of alien plot. He squeezed the bridge of his nose hard, closing his eyes. Perhaps when he opened them again he would find this was all a nightmare, he'd had too much pasta.

Nope. Harris was sill there. Archer sighed. "So what are we supposed to do this time?" Harris had briefly laid out the plan but Archer was taking no chances that some desk-riding admirals would know better than him what was best for Enterprise. He listened, nodding his approval or scowling in disbelief as Harris talked.

In the end there was still a chance nothing would happen and they would get to Gamma Vedra III unbothered. The universe couldn't always have it out for him. Could it?

xxx

 _ **T'Pol**_

"Who got you that key?!"

The tone was half-angry, intended to intimidate. T'Pol turned towards the speaker and Trip took a half-step towards her, letting the other courier know she was not unprotected.

"Who are you to ask?" The response had the right mix of challenge in it. Trip couldnt help but be impressed. He glowered at the man from behind his slave mask.

The courier broke into an ugly snarl. "You were a fifth level courier not that long ago. And now you have access to the fifth floor?" He leered openly at her forms. "You must have some real talents. Looks like even Vulcans can lay flat on their backs." The man snorted. "We know which part of Vrekaib did all the work."

Trip took one more step, wihch put the heel of his boot directly over the courier's toes. At the same time, his dagger flew out of his belt and he pointed it at the man's throat, while his other hand grabbed a fistful of the courier's coat, bringing the man nose to nose with him. He slowly ground his heel with all his strength into the other man's plantar digits.

"You're going to take that back and apologize." Trip snarled in the man's face.

The courier could not move, immobilized between the dagger and the walls of the elevator, squinting from the pain of his crushed toes. "Ok, no need to get angry. I was just kidding." Trip increased the pressure and the man yowled. "Ok, I'll take it back, I'll take it back." Trip released his hold slightly and the man grumbled.

"Louder." Trip brought the fist holding the coat closer to him and the man's throat closer to the danger. " _Nidrog_!" The courier spat quickly.

The elevators doors opened and T'Pol stepped out, not saying a word, then waited for Trip to come and stand behind her. The courier chose to stay inside and let the doors close on him.

"Don't mind that useless boor," Trip told T'Pol. She was just standing there with her hands behind her back, looking almost relaxed, but he could feel the turmoil in the bond. As if it wasn't bad enough that she had to work for Vrekaib... He couldn't walk to her and lay a reassuring hand on her shoulder, there were people all around. He hoped that somehow his presence was helping.

When she turned back to him, her expression was sober. "Poryk mentioned that the other couriers may have been the ones who tried to kill me." She didn't go further, not that she needed to. Trip looked back at the elevator doors. "Then, we'll just have to make sure they can't get rid of me."

xxx

 _ **Soval**_

The restraining center was an oasis of efficient calm, a large sand-colored building on the outskirts of town. Large enough to house a small city. It had always been used as a holding center and would be used for millennia to come. There were no windows on the outside walls, all the windows of the circular building were on the inside, floor upon floor of repetitive cells, all looking to the covered inside so the dwellers kept there knew no beginning and no end, either to the building or to the day.

Soval repressed a shudder as he stepped from the hot sunlight into the shade of the entrance. The massive stone gates opened smoothly on their hydraulic support, five times as tall as him and five times as wide, a silent but effective signal that the building itself would easily dwarf him.

The commander of the compound came out of her office to greet him, a small courtesy sign that she was suitably impressed. It was not often that members of the Council stopped by, they would usually have little to do with her charges, other than wayward family members, or the occasional pon-farr induced murderer. Rehabilitation was the sough-after goal, though exceptions were made for the truly inimical. They never found their way out, spending their lives in the strictly controlled society of the holding center. Those and of course aliens, who seldom seemed to benefit from the rehabilitative approaches that worked for Vulcans. Their resistance to change had been a source of constant vexation until the logical conclusion was arrived at that one could not expect civilized behavior from uncivilized species.

After the introductory niceties, the compound director took hold of the padd proferred by the ambassador, taking note of the official stamp. A discrete scan by the security sensor brightened the invisible seal. These orders were indeed from the Council. T'Sheki perused the bulletin twice for good measure. She couldn't help the lift of her eyebrows, looking back at Soval halfway between irritation and mild pleasure. The irritation was illogical since it was an already established fact that the aliens would not be rehabilitated. The news that they could somehow be helpful was pleasant though her internal sense of balance was disturbed by the fact their punishment would be abruptly shortened to almost nothing.

She preceded Soval down the long hallway to the alien section, where food and temperatures could be broadly customized for the diverse occupants. That part of the building was much cooler, she had to rotate he staff out faster due to the inhospitable conditions. They stopped in front of a cell, a shimmering curtain separating hem from the aliens inside. They door in the back of their cell had been closed to block their access to the external circuit loop and ensure their cooperation. The cell was filthy, the way only aliens would find acceptable. T'Sheki's position was that being restrained from accessing normal life was enough restriction, every species was free to live as they pleased within the compound. So long as they didn't harm others.

The curtain disappeared and Soval stepped in. The two men got up from their respective beds, towering over Soval within the narrow confines of their cell. He might have been intimidated if not for T'Sheki and the guards' pointed weapons behind his back. The Orions already knew it was futile to try. They simply looked at him.

"Ngekkom, Ngeguk," He saluted them in turn. "I bring a proposition from all Vulcan."

xxx

 _ **The Handler**_

Joru reviewed the response from the intelligence unit and cursed. The _ronpaktui_ , may their mothers beget dogs in their next lives. He just knew they hadn't communicated his report to the _lelehksaù_ . Low-level bureaucrats, with the intellect of _ar'savoth_. THey hadn't even read it, or if they did, they didn't have the ability to understand it. They didn't realize how important this was, the _lelehksaù_ had to be informed. They all had heir own careers to worry about, but this was more important. Romulan plans were at stake. There was a pattern here but he wasn't sure that anyone could see it. The intelligence _lelehksaù_ would, he would know what to do, if he could only get to him. The lower ranks were too busy on their self-promotion to understand that important information could come from a backwater planet like Reldair, even if it was the headquarters of the Matravekh.

He read the message again, another bland boilerplate notice that his message had been received, they were taking good care of it. Joru scoffed. By the time they did, there might be nothing left to save. He would reach out to the _lelehksaù_ himself, impress on him how there may be an issue with the information they were getting from the sources on Vulcan and in the Federation. Perhaps the sources had been compromised, in spite of the odds that both would turn bad at the same time. Perhaps the intelligence services in both places were in on the Matravekh, however distant the possibility. He couldn't dismiss anything.

He looked up from his report to the _lelehksaù_. The courier he had requested was standing by, half-hidden by the dozen screens crowding his office. He liked to have a courier waiting there all day. It was the first time he'd seen that one, not that he cared much whether he knew them or not. At least this one was soft on the eyes. He noticed with a start that she was a Vulcan. Very unusual, in Romulan space. She must be one of the rebels hiding on Cathruusa. He only had contempt for them, traitors to their planet, chasing a chimera and blind to the realities of what thousands of years of divergence had made to Vulcans and Romulans. They were vague cousins but completely different cultures.

He let his gaze caress the courier, expressing with a half-masked sneer the contempt he felt for her before abruptly dropping his gaze to focus again on his report and the data. He looked up again. For a half-second the woman had reminded him of the intelligence _lelehksaù_. But he was mistaken. She was much smaller and a woman. He suppressed a smile at the thought and hastened to bury it. The intelligence overseer may not appreciate any random thought that a Vulcan looked like him. Joru liked his peace, and his life. And anyway all Vulcans looked alike. He went back to his screens.

It was hours later that he looked up again. The Vulcan courier was still standing there. Joru pushed back from his desk, his mind on what he would select for his midday repast. He got up, looked at the courier again, then at his office, trying to see it as someone would who was not used to it, the deep pink of the walls, the ancient rifles hung on the wall, one on each side of the windows. Nobody knew they were cocked and ready to fire, a small additional piece of insurance. Joru was all about doubling down on defenses. He guessed that he could leave the courier where she was until he came back, there was not much of interest in his office for a courier, except for the two ancient rifles on the wall. They would be worth quite a lot if ever pawned. Joru was not one to take chances, he wouldn't have survived at the Romulan liaison to the Matravekh if he were. Even though he knew that the risk was minimal, if the courier dared steal anything her life would be forfeited in the most atrocious manner, he didn't want the hassle of filling forms to reclaim what by right was his, or having to travel to some administrative agency's office to pick them up.

"Come back in one time division." He gruffly told the woman, waiting until she'd left his office. He was ridiculous, he knew. Soon enough, he wouldn't even notice she was there, she'd just become part of the furniture. But it was the first time he saw her and he wasn't taking chances.

 _xxx_

 ** _Reed_**

The rhythmic echo of the security squadron boots against the walls of the corridor served as a thumping bass to Reed's brooding thoughts. Brooding? No, angry. DNA infused with generations of the British Empire Navy was up in arms within him, deeply upset by what he'd learn from Sphelt and Harris. Good old Minister Sphelt. He knew some would think he should be grateful that Vulcan had tipped their hand about their stealth technology, just enough to give Reed and Archer an idea of what they were looking for. Enough that they knew they had no clue what they were looking for, except it could be anything, look like anything, and only a very intense scrutiny would reveal it wasn't what it seemed to be.

The echoes of the march soothed his heart, as always. These were the sounds of order, of a world well controlled, of things unfolding according to a plan, except perhaps when it came to his joining Starfleet instead of the Royal Navy. But still. Millenia of the British Empire resonated in these sounds, centuries of economic and cultural dominance, stiff upper-lip and reason over emotion. All this, and now under threat from the rebels, a ragtag bunch of hypocrites, worthy only of contempt, like all traitors to their nation. And that these low-lives could now present a threat to Enterprise - well, that was just over the top. He, Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, was going to find what they left behind, even if he had to take the ship apart panel by panel for it.

"Szabo! You and your team take the hallway to the right!" As they walked through the corridors, Reed was dispatching subset teams, precisely, orderly, he ran his unit like a well-oiled machine. "Remember, we are looking for something that doesn't look like anything!" He saw Szabo slow down momentarily, then nod and collect his assigned security crewmembers. Reed and the rest kept going. The staccato of the march would be his only calendar until they found what they were looking for.

The entire crew was on call for this, even those on the bridge. Double-shifts, eight-hour rotating rest period, any minute not on duty would be spent looking for it. It. The item that didn't look like anything. At least the Vulcans had shared that much. Also that the item would be inert, something that wasn't part of Enterprise's original build. Larger than a hockey puck or the rebels would have to get too close to activate it. Until then, it could be anything. A vase, a piece of artwork, a weight in a corner of the gym. Large enough that a crewman could not house it in their tight quarters. Small enough that finding it would be finding a needle in a haystack. The only saving grace that the metal or whatever it was made of would be foreign to the DNA of Enterprise.

They had reached a T intersection. "Chen! Haloufi! take your teams and choose your corridor. Everyone, stay in radio contact. Remember, it can be anything." Already he'd had M'Boppe recheck the containers from the Commanders' quarters. Nothing there. They had a few weeks before they reached Gamma Vedra III. Probably another couple of weeks before the admission ceremonies. The rebels would strike at any time, on the way there, on the way back. They needed to find it.

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

"Hey!" Trip grabbed T'Pol just before she hit the cobblestones. "What was that?!"

She was studying the stones at her feet, looking for some explanation. But there didn't seem to be any. In the feeble light of the _lightalos_ , the cobblestones shone smooth and even.

Trip was eyeing her with narrowed eyes, grabbing on to the most logical explanation he could find, that she had fallen asleep on her feet. "That's it. We need to get you home." He was trying to check her out in spite of the dim light. Nothing was coming through the bond. At least she was still controlling it, that was reassuring. "You're exhausted."

Predictably, that got a rise out of her. "I am not exhausted. Vulcans -

"I know, I know, they don't need as much sleep as humans. But they do need some sleep, especially if they're having trouble meditating. Right?" He knew she would have a hard time seeing his expression. What was dim light for him would be quite opaque for her.

"I do not know why have trouble with meditation. I should-"

"There, right there." Trip jumped in. "First of, I'd say you're caught in the classic spiral, if you think it's your fault. There's no 'should'. It's simply a fact. You're not meditating. Now, since you don't meditate, you need to sleep. QED." The nonplussed look she shot him pleased him to the tip of his toes. "Quid Erat Demonstratum." He added. She nodded. He shouldn't be surprised she would know Latin words. "Second of," Trip was on a roll, "I really don't know why you'd be having trouble meditating, between Vrekaib putting the squeeze on you, the couriers at your throat, the rebels cutting you off, and let's not forget that in the middle of all that we're - you're - supposed to find the Handler. And, and, your father. Piece of cake, really." And because she was a Vulcan, Trip added for good measure. "That was sarcasm."

"I know what sarcasm is." She huffed. He rolled his eyes. On the other hand, it was true that sarcasm was second nature to Vulcans. She was already going on. "I am fine. We have a delivery to make." Of course she wouldn't agree.

Trip sighed in exasperation. The whole situation was absurd. Vrekaib had her working day and night, he usually was a better manager of resources than that. The man must be under stress. It wouldn't be much use for T'Pol to ask for a break. Plus Trip had some idea what quid pro quo Vrekaib would require. She was stuck. They were stuck.

This time, he was the one who changed the topic. "Listen, I'm almost done with sketching out the fifth floor." He proceeded to explain what he had found, about the secret staircases that afforded a quick exit in case of emergency, the redundant power sources, the autonomous ciruits, everything that signaled to trained eyes that the fifth floor was the center of power. If he maintained her attention, she wouldn't fall asleep on her feet. Vrekaib posting her to the fifth floor had been a divine stroke of luck. Matched with what they had heard from Poryk and Vulcan, in whatever order, it meant the handler was on the fifth floor, there was no other possibility. It was only a matter of time before they found out which one it was.

Thinking about Poryk brought to mind how they hardly saw him these days. The preparations were using all of his time and he was uncharacteristically mute as to what was going on. Trip had a sense this was because he was forbidden to reveal anything. There was an upcoming rebel assembly, it had already been one cycle since the last one. Another shortened night, the last thing they needed. Hopefully they'd get more information about the going-ons. Hopefully.

* * *

 _ar'savot_ (pl. _ar'savoth_ ) - minuscule flying insects, roughly similar to a cross between fruit flies and gnats.

 _lelehksaù_ \- Romulan military level similar to centurion.

 _lightalos_ \- lighting fixture typical of Cathruusa

 _Ngekkom_ \- Orion captain.

 _Ngeguk_ \- Orion captain's twin.

 _nidrog_ \- shortened form of archaic 'sorry'

 _Reldair_ \- planet in Romulan space on which Cathruusa is located.

 _ronpaktu_ (pl. _ronpaktui_ ) - a small furry animal with a tail, lives in packs, cat-sized.

 _T'Sheki_ \- commander of the restraining center.


	40. The Forest 40 - The Third

_Notes: Okay, everyone, we're in the home stretch. After this, I will stop writing for a while. I think, though one never knows. Enjoy the rest of the story!_

* * *

 _ **Soval**_

"Projecting for the hypothetical most-efficient route to Reldair, the shipment will be in the general area of the planet when the timer fails. The explosion will destroy the cargo but not the ship."

Sphelt nodded his accord and the technician swiftly keyed the combination in the side of the canister, then locked the access hatch. The odds that the pirates would sift through the hundred of bioheads in the cargo and find this one were infinitesimal. Booby-trapping more than one biohead would only have increased the odds of discovery, the energy drain might have been just enough to register on the pirates instruments. Sphelt turned to Ambassdor Soval, who had accompanied him in the cavernous hangar where the third shipment was being prepared.

"We have an approximation of the quadrant coordinates for Reldair. The explosion will register on the transport instruments and finish guiding the... Orions." His ears turned green with distaste at the idea the slave traders would soon be free and roaming in space.

Soval gave a brisk dip of the head to acknowledge his understanding. "You have a beacon on the transport, of course?"

Sphelt could feel his blush recede as the conversation veered into security and intelligence matters. "It has been integrated into their engine. If they try and disconnect it, they will find that their warp drive goes inert." He paused. "They will not be able to discern the additional hum." His tone made it clear that a Vulcan ear would.

"We are also holding most of their crew." Soval pointed out. Only a couple of crew members would accompany the captain and his brother. The idea of using undercover agents in place of the Orion crew had run into the same issues that had necessitated the recourse to the Orions. The ministry of security needed all its active members. The information, Soval assumed it came from Poryk, that a homing device had been left aboard Enterprise, most likely delivered through the _Nahr_ , revealed there were deeply hidden pockets of V'Las loyalists throughout Vulcan. Sphelt and his services were hard pressed attempting to neutralize the threat while T'Pau focused on gaining the wayward factions over to the civilized vision laid by Surak. Resources would be strained for quite a while.

At least T'Pau had authorized the funding outside of usual Council procedures. The thought triggered another one. "What about the Federation?" Soval prompted.

"Their third shipment is on the point of being launched. Colonel Harris has aligned his schedule on ours." Soval silently considered how Sphelt had given Harris a new title. Given the continued absence of definition around Harris's organization it seemed an appropriate accommodation. Vulcans abhorred anything that was not precisely ordered and catalogued.

Xxx

 _ **Poryk**_

"Weapons leader, you need to look at the schematics."

Poryk stopped in his tracks and cocked his head towards the interlocutor calling him from behind. He was already at the door of the warehouse where the preparations were under way. All indications had been that he could leave and attend to other matters unnoticed. But with five groups of rebels working around the clock on the preparation of the upcoming initiative, it had perhaps been illogical to think that he could absent himself even for an instant. It had been many days since he had had the time and opportunity to communicate with Vulcan. He still had to let them know about the honing device that Jivak had mentioned in passing while they were going over supplies orders. Poryk had noted the information while carefully concealing any sign he found the deceit distasteful.

The initiative was gaining speed. Every day now crates and shipments were coming from all parts of the Romulan empire, courtesy of the Matravekh. Food and fuel, maps, electrosensors, weapons of all kinds, warp cores. They had had to double the logistics team, and double it again, just to keep ahead of the unending flow of deliveries. That left them short-staffed, barely able to take rest periods even less so to leave the grounds. Still, progress was swift, and on track. At the next cycle Jivak would reveal more of the plan. Poryk didn't expect they would hear the entire plan. He knew that Enterprise was somehow involved. Their common hypothesis about why T'Pol and Commander Tucker were not allowed to participate in the preparations had been confirmed by Jivak's oblique reference to the self-activating device left aboard Enterprise. The next question was whether Enterprise was the goal or a side objective. That would be revealed at the coming assembly. Possibly.

He was not certain he could warn Vulcan in time. If he did not and Enterprise was attacked, probabilities were that T'Agad would think he was somehow involved and refuse to bond with him. He had no way of letting her know this was not the case. Then it would not serve his purpose to return to Vulcan.

As he followed the rebel from another group back to where the weapons team was assembling and disassembling the various weapons parts, Poryk found that his thoughts were somber.

xxx

 _ **Archer**_

"With the proper discipline, the device would already have been found."

Reed looked fixedly at the center of the table, mentally counting to fifteen. At the head of the table, he could feel Archer's tense into an almost-too-upright straightness. He wondered if Archer had had it with Siegull as much as he did. He found himself wishing that he was on shore leave, at night, in a dark alley, and had too much to drink. Somehow the next image was that of Siegull lying flat on his back, blood gushing from his nose and snotty mouth. Granted that was not how a naval officer ever should behave, but some situations called for specific remedies.

Archer loudly breathed in, drawing glances from everyone in the tactical room. It reminded Hoshi of the times chasing the Xindi and how tense Archer had been, close to breaking, snapping at everyone and everything. She carefully kept her poker face on, thinking about how much she'd like to place a bet on Siegull's continued survival right now.

Archer slowly straightened even taller. "Commander Siegull," he said as if it were hurting his mouth to say the words, his tone preternaturally calm. Everyone held their breath, avoiding to look at the short-statured commander, waiting for the tongue-lashing. "We certainly could use the benefit of your thinking. Please take us through how you would apply discipline to the problem."

Someone snorted though Hoshi could not see who it was, her gaze fixedly riveted on the tabletop. She hoped it was not Travis. She knew it couldn't be Malcolm. She quickly shot a glance at him and saw he was about lobster-red with the effort to keep from laughing. Could it be?

At the other end of the table, Siegull cleared his throat, nervously reaching for the absent switch under his armpit. He hadn't seen the source of the guffaw, another sign of Archer's lax disciplinary habits that his crew would dare make fun of the Captain. It never crossed his mind that the laughter could have been for him.

Archer narrowed his eyes as Siegull pedantically went over the search efforts, not even realizing that everything he was proposing had already been done. He noticed the junior officers were carefully avoiding confronting Siegull. Now that Malcolm had lost control and snorted, the security officer could not challenge Siegull. Once again he found himself wishing that his commanders were there. T'Pol would have bluntly asked Siegull to explain himself while Trip would have asked pointedly tongue-in-cheek questions, the two pairing on the hapless officer without anyone being the wiser for it.

In spite of his dislike for the man, Archer proceeded to listen attentively. It wouldn't be the first time that some seemingly lost cause had produced a pearl of genius without even realizing it.

xxx

 _ **Joru**_

"Thirteen oh five _Selik_ quadrant... sixteen thousand three _Gamrmad_ ... five thousand eighteen _Jum'mo_ quadrant."

Joru repeated the coordinates, mindless of the courier standing in the room. He had accurately predicted she would soon be another piece of furniture and he would forget she was even there, except on those rare occasions when he needed to deliver a report to the other side of the building, rarer again when he needed some minor errand completed.

One thing Joru was not thinking about was the extensive Vulcan memory. T'Pol carefully noted the numbers. When Joru left the roomshe would check against the hand scanner she always carried hidden on her. In the meantime, she focused on what he was doing, trying to decipher his actions from the glimpses of him she could see through the wall of screen monitors on his desk. All she had sight of day after day, hour upon hour, was the back of the computer screens he was spending all his attention on, but she had learned to tell most of what he was doing between the noise of his keying entries or his head sometimes bobbing in sight when he readjusted his chair or when he briefly got up to fetch a report, hardly ever glancing in her direction.

The time spent at attention waiting for his bidding had enabled her to build an exact plan of the room. At night, before they went on another Vrekaib run, she would feed Trip everything she had seen, the measurements she was able to surreptitiously take, which he painstakingly reported on his plan of the fifth floor. By now, she knew every detail of the room, the two tall windows bordered by ancient firearms, some vaguely familiar from old Vulcan history books, all of ready access. The Romulan manager spent a fair amount of time and money acquiring either exact replicas of old weapons of the weapons themselves, it was difficult at her distance to know which was which. And asking was out of the question.

In any case the man almost never spoke. Whatever work the man was doing on the computer was interrupted from time to time by live calls. Coms were short and obscure, he obviously in a rush to get off the com as soon as they started, taking great pains to divulge the least amount of information. Still, she had heard enough to know his name Jahr-ru and that he was working in some kind of logistic or purchasing function. Which made him a likely candidate to be the Handler, a hypothesis that required to be tested. He would already be long at work by he time he summoned her and she suspected the early hours were when he talked to the ouside world. There was also the matter of securing another placement if this was not the man they were looking for. Jahr-ru kept requesting her presence, even if he had nothing for her to do.

Xxx

 _ **Prycopirian Captain**_

"Weve secured the shipment Captain! Everything is there!"

The captain's sudden color change expressed his contentment, his blue taking the hints of turquoise. This cargo was the crowning glory of his piracy, hundreds of bioheads, all locked and ready to go, he already had buyers lined up the whole way to Cathruusa. The information had sprung from nowhere, all of a sudden word had come from the Matravekh that a cargo would be coming by the coordinates. Too good to be true. They would be towing the cargo containers behind them, he was not taking any chances having his crew exposed to bioheads. He whistled high and low his appreciation to his men, who responded with a chorus of high-pitched celebrations.

The captain waived his main tentacle in pleasure. This should redeem the missed shipment from not that long ago. His handler at the Matravekh was persnickety, he would be reminding him of his failure for the next five years.

But little did it matter now. With the shipment of bioheads in tow, his star as a pirate was shining bright again.

xxx

 _ **T'Pol**_

"Do you mean to tell me he never talks?"

The tone was harsh. T'Pol looked at Vrekaib, sensing the man's distrust. She blinked in confusion. Wasn't that what she had just told him? Every morning and every evening he would summon her to his office, to find out what if anything had been said about him in the Romulan's offices. Every evening and every morning she left him frustrated and suspicious.

The only office she had access to was that of Jahr-ru. Since he had been requesting her presence on a continuous basis, she no longer was posted in other offices whose occupants might perhaps have been more loquacious. She could no more change Jahr-ru's request of couriers than Vrekaib could change her assignment to the fifth floor.

She could read in Vrekaib's eyes the coming end of her usefulness to him. He would soon replace her with another courier, in the hope that another could entice Jah-ru to lower his guard. Whether she would survive the switch was another question. She was well aware of the end met by her predecessor. She tensed her muscles ever so slightly, in case Vrekaib proceeded to act quickly. Trip was outside in the hall, waiting for her. She computed he would not have enough time to rush in and help her.

She frowned slightly. She was almost certain Jahr-ru was the Handler, it was only a matter of time before he gave her proof. She couldn't be posted somewhere else until that happened. She needed to find ways to maintain her posting. Perhaps it was time to get Jahr-ru talking, at least where Vrekaib was concerned. As she carefully took her leave of him, she started thinking through what it was Jahr-ru would say.

xxx

 _ **Orion slaver**_

"Set a course for those coordinates."

Dozem quickly entered the coordinates, and froze at his station. Romulan space. One did not go lightly into Romulan space. They had to have enough resources not to have to resupply along the way. Romulan species were quite adverse to those they perceived as weakened. The few Orion traders that had established routes in Romulan space had built their network of contacts over the years, knew where to go and whom to trust. He wasn't sure about this. Not sure at all.

"And we'll go home after this?" Dozem's tone was plaintive, more than fit a grown Orion male. All he had ever wanted was to go back home from the very beginning, but instead he had found himself captive on an alien planet, hearing it would be years, years, before he saw his family again. And then, miraculously, he had been brought out of jail and now he was back with Captain Ngekkom and his brother Ngeguk, on some secret mission. He was told that if they accomplished the mission, they would get back to Vulcan and then they would be free to return to Orion. With all of the crew. He couldn't believe his luck. He started secretly praying to the great goddesses that lurked in all corner of the universe that they not decided to play with their small craft, but let them proceed unscathed, so he could go back home.

He almost jumped when Captain Ngekkom abruptly showed up in his visual sphere. "I won't leave my crew on Vulcan. We will come back. I promise." The captain had dropped his usual roughness. He couldn't risk to get their pilot upset, not when they were only four to man a twenty-hand ship. His gaze absent-mindedly drifted to the back of the bridge, where the cargo was secured in their hold. The Vulcans at least had given them merchandise to trade, enough to back-up their pretense of being on a trading voyage. Though, weren't they after all?

Ngekkom started picking at one of his protruding teeth. Perhaps there were ways he could still make this profitable.

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

"Qomi, here's your opportunity to help against your kind."

Trip turned to the man who had called after him, recognizing Spivac. He was starting to have an innate dislike for the healer. He stood his ground, unmoving. The Vulcan accelerated his step towards him, which was somewhat of a surprise. Behind him, he heard a gasp, realized it was T'Pol and a wave of something indefinite came over the bond, then she suppressed it. He threw a side glance to check she was okay. Her eyes were riveted on Spivac, larger than he could remember seeing them.

He brought his attention back to Spivac. "Not when you couch it like that, I do not." He firmly replied. He saw from the corner of his eye that Jival was making a beeline through the crowded room straight for them. The assembly had been breaking down, everyone ready to go back to their daily occupations now that they'd heard about how the initiative had been accelerated. There was still no official word about the target but he and T'Pol were very obviously excluded from the preparations.

Spivac scowled. "The choice is not yours to decide. The attack ships need to be manned and your skills will be needed."

"The attack ships?" That detail had not been covered during the assembly. "What are we attacking?"

A half-smile animated Spiva's mouth in an ugly shape. "The attack ships will be diverting Enterprise. This is your opportunity to prove yourself for the glory of the reborn empire. We need daring pilots to accomplish our goals."

Trip felt like he had just been gut-punched. He looked from Spivac to T'Pol to Jivak, who had just arrived. The three Vulcans looked like statues in a waking nightmare. He noticed T'Pol wasn't saying anything. Was she in on it? She was not looking at him, still not saying anything, looking fixedly at Spivac as if she was waiting for him to jump them. If Enterprise was the goal, the attack ships were essentially suicide bombers. And Spivac was trying to force him in that role. All they had to do was put a gun to T'Pol's head unless he climbed aboard one of those bombers. He could see why the two of them had been kept apart from the proceedings.

"I'm not piloting any ship. I'm not a pilot." He finally stammered, feeling the rush of his heartbeat in his ears.

"The final staffing of the ships has not been decided." Jivak added. Trip could positively have hugged him.

"We need to deploy resources judiciously." Spivac was looking straight at Jivak. It was obvious something was going on between the two men.

"And we shall." Jivak turned to Trip. "We will call you when you are needed." From the corner of his eye he saw T'Pol start to talk. He stopped her before she could say anything. "Both of you." He inclined his head then he was gone. Spivac waited for a few second, staring at Trip and T'Pol in victory, then turned on on his heel and followed.

T'Pol was still rooted in place. Trip went to her. "Are you okay?" he whispered. There was something wrong, he could feel it but he didn't know what it was. Her eyes were still wide when she turned to him.

"Spivac." she stopped, looked to where Spivac was walking away behind Jivak. "He is the one that tried to kill me."


	41. The Forest 41 - The Lull

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

"Are you sure?" Trip asked, then mentally berated himself. Of course she was sure, she was a Vulcan. They were back in their quarters from the rebel assembly, preparing for the day ahead. Still, he found it hard to believe. Spivac was a healer, he had helped T'Agad. He didn't strike him as the type who'd be hunting down couriers to kill them in some nefarious scheme. "But why? Do you think Jivak put him up to it?"

T'Pol shook her head once. "Jivak wouldn't need to have Spivac do it for him. All he would need to do is publicly withdraw his support or voice his doubts as to my appurtenance."

Trip nodded. Yes, he could see that Jivak didn't need anyone else to do his dirty work for him. "But Spivac is a healer..." Trip started. He couldn't wrap his mind around it.

"A healer is better equipped to know how to take life." T'Pol calmly replied.

Trip looked at her askance. Sometimes he forgot she was from a different culture. The sun was rising. He started pacing. Everything was just too much. The healer as a killer... though he suddenly remembered Spivac had never said he was a healer, he'd only said he was trained in the medical arts. The realization hit him. Perhaps a euphemism to say that he was a trained killer. He turned to T'Pol, wanting to ask her if perhaps Spivac was a Romulan. What did Romulans look like any way? But Spivac looked like every other Vulcan he knew and some unexpected reserve made him shy away from the question.

He kept on pacing the room. Finally T'Pol turned to him, her voice high-pitched in annoyance. "It would be more restful if you stayed in one place."

Trip whirled on her. "Easy for you to say! Nobody's making plans to have you become a kamikaze pilot against your own ship!" Before she could retort he was already going on. "I have to warn Enterprise."

"And how do you propose to do that?" The tone was biting.

"Well, it would be nice if Poryk actually came by and told us what's going on." He snorted. "But obviously, he's reverted to the rebel cause. Did you see him at the assembly, telling everyone about the weapons and what stage of preparedness they're in? He's absolutely enjoying this."

"He is doing what he was tasked to do. Enjoyment is not a factor."

"Oh yes?! If that were the case wouldn't he have found ways to come warn us, warn me! - cause god knows it's not you that animal Spivac is thinking about piloting a death ship. But instead we haven't seen sign of Poryk in weeks. He's been planning to kill my friends while pretending to be ours!"

T'Pol closed her eyes, seemed to mentally steel herself against something. "Your... agitation... is a strain." She finally said.

"Well, excuuuse me!" He had been looking for a reason to explode and she had just handed it to him on a silver platter. "So sorry I'm a strain on your system! Your little slave is Human, in case you'd forgotten! Ah, yes, that word leaves a bad taste in your mouth, doesn't it?! So easy, now that you're safely ensconced here! Perfect environment for you, right?!" His tone was dripping sarcasm. " Your rebel friends, others like you, what does it matter if they're planning to kill your crewmates. Do you even remember them? Oh, that's right. They're only Humans! Not like you care what happens to them. Or me! I'm just a sex toy, after all! And if that's all I am to you, then by all means, let's quit this charade!"

It was only when he saw the look of shocked puzzlement on her face that Trip realized he may gone too far. She broke eye contact and looked at the floor, seeming to stare where he knew there was nothing to stare at.

"You are free to leave. You do not need Poryk to help." Her tone was carefully neutral but he could tell she was pissed. Her shields were up all the way yet he had a sudden image of a small forlorn figure in a hostile desert.

His anger had already left him. He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, feeling stupid and foolish. "Huh, listen..." He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. Just my mouth rambling on without being hitched to my brains. I'm upset about Enterprise and this whole situation. I didn't mean it." For once she didn't try to pretend there was no issue with their situation.

Trip sat on the edge of the bed, defeated. "I can't seem to do anything right, can I. First, I get myself in the way of your plans, now this... All I want is for us to get out of here, find a safe place for you. And me. And now Enterprise is under threat..." He sat, mulling. "I won't leave. I won't leave you. I can't go hiding some place and let them do what they're planning, whatever that is. And were close to finding the Handler, anyway."

T'Pol was still staring at the floor. He couldn't tell what she was thinking but somehow he knew he'd hurt her. Vulcans didn't have feelings my ass. He kept forgetting. He was abruptly reminded that their feelings ran to red-hot anger and he looked at T'Pol with circumspection. Hopefully he hadn't triggered an emotional reaction that would overwhelm her inner shields, damaged by Pa'naar. And she'd been having trouble meditating. Self-preservation drove him to quickly think through what he could do to defuse the situation and help channel her emotions. An idea suddenly came. Talking figures and plans would help.

"What were those coordinates Jar-ru mentioned again?"

T'Pol looked up, grabbing at the peace offering and the haven of unemotional numbers. Soon they were once again leaning over her small hand-held scanner, trying to understand what was in those coordinates in the dead of space.

xxx

 _ **Romulus**_

The _lelehksaù_ reached out to turn the computer off, stayed his hand and brought it back to his lap. He couldn't stop staring at the picture on the screen. It was grainy, hard to see. It had been taken at night and in a rain that wrecked havoc with the thermic sensors, in a badly lit part of Cathruusa, just before the local residents destroyed the camera. That was the issue with those unruly districts of town. No matter how innocuous-looking, they always found the cameras and tore them down. No security force could reach deep enough in there and the perpetrators acted with impunity.

He stared intently at the grainy image, trying to find details he knew, reveling in what he could see and frustrated by the distortions in the picture. He checked the date again. It had been taken the week before. Happenstance, he couldn't let anyone know that he, a centurion of the Romulan Empire, was captivated by the image of a fresh-faced Vulcan rebel, a lowly courier. Their only use was as canon fodder, easier to lose than true-blood Romulan citizens. His only recourse was to wait until the computer chime let him know the search algorithm had identified her face among the thousands of daily terabytes of data.

The stream of pictures had suddenly stopped a cycle ago and he had wondered with something close to anguish what might have happened. Since then there had been no news and no reports. This was the first find in a long while, he just wished the image had been better so he could clearly identify it was her, though something told him it was. So she was still around, he remembered her picture from Starfleet files. A _lelehksaù_ in the intelligence services had access to more information than anyone could guess.

She was still active then, and still on Cathruusa. And a part of Vrekaib's network. He needed to proceed carefully. If Vrekaib had any hint that she was an object of Romulan consideration she would disappear never to be found again. He wanted her alive. And he couldn't upset the fragile equilibrium they had achieved with the Matravekh. Let them know a Starfleet officer had infiltrated their network and the carefully built alliance would unravel in an instant.

He looked fixedly at the screen, thinking. She used to be visible during the day before she disappeared. Now she was seen at night. What did she do during the day? He needed to find out where she had been posted.

His computer pinged and he looked at the incoming mail symbol with marked discontent. He didn't need anybody disturbing him while he was busy trying to lay out his options. He briefly glanced at the sender, one of the _ohksauu_ , forwarding a communication from one of their agents posted on Cathruusa. He automatically archived the mail, another report from Joru, the man was a persnickety fellow living a carefully ordered life inside the Matravekh, seeing threats in every shadow, but a master at coordinating all he pieces.

The moment the mail disappeared from the screen corner, the _lelehksaù_ did a double-take. He started frantically sifting through the messages for the one he'd just seen. Joru might be a tedious man with his detailed approach to life, but that in itself was his value. He knew where all the pieces lay. If the centurion asked right, he might be able to get information about the courier.

xxx

 _ **Enterprise**_

"You're here too?"

"Sshhh!" Hoshi whispered as loudly as she could. She had the advantage of her eyes being adjusted to the dark and had seen Travis sneak in on the observation deck. He hadn't noticed her until she talked.

"Ow!" The yelp sounded loud in the surrounding silence.

Hoshi rolled her eyes. "What did you do this time?"

"I kicked something in the dark." He dropped on the couch next to her, jostling her, holding his foot, lowering his voice. Then he started silently laughing. Of course the two of them were the ones who played hooky from the search. He knew her well enough that he should have known. The initial drive to find the device, whatever it was, had given way to lassitude. Perhaps it was a hoax, perhaps nothing was on the ship and this was just a Romulan ruse to get them fatigued before they attacked. Travis wasn't sure anymore.

"I love looking at the stars." He whispered in way of an explanation. Of course, he was a pilot, he would never tire of the stars.

"I just needed a break from Malcolm" Hoshi replied with a small laugh. She knew she didn't need to explain. Lieutenant Reed on an unsuccessful mission was more than many could put up with.

Travis smiled in the dark. "I won't tell." He looked around at the deck. "Isn't this where the rebels spent a lot of their time?" He asked in passing.

"I heard one of them mention it." Hoshi frowned trying to remember where she's heard it. Then it came to her. It wasn't the rebel, it was Trip, complaining they were spending time close to sensitive centers.

She sat bolt upright on the couch. "What exactly did you kick?"

"If I knew, I'd saved my foot." Travis replied.

"I think I need to tell Malcolm." Hoshi got up.

Travis was already on his feet. Somewhere someone would have the exact lay-out of the room as it was before the rebels came on board.

xxx

 _ **The Handler**_

Joru gave a sharp smile of pleasure. Incoming communication from Romulus indeed. Perhaps the o _hksauu_ were not such waste of skin after all and had alerted the centurion to his report about the troubling coincidences of unsuccessful cargo piracies.

He straightened up when he heard the speaker. The _lelehksaù_ himself, reaching out to him? He listened attentively, mindless of his surroundings, including the courier standing in his office. The call from a higher up was enough to throw his usual caution to the wind. "Yes, _lelehksaù_. That's is what the probabilities point to."

The response from the other side could not be heard.

"The Vulcans rebels? The only group that came recently from Federation space is Jivak's group."

T'Pol still couldn't hear the other. Jar-ru has his headphones on.

"Not to worry, I am in daily contact with him. I'll ask if he has any information."

There was a longer silence while the Romulans listened to his caller.

"I don't know, you'd have to ask Vrekaib. He's in charge of the couriers. I could always ask my courier, though I'm not sure she'd know."

This time the other aide talked for less long. Jar-ru sounded like he was ramrod straight in his chair.

"Of course, _lelehksaù_ , of course. I didn't mean to imply in any way... Yes, glory to the empire!"

Joru shut off the com savoring a feeling of satisfaction. It was not every day that the _lelehksaù_ reached out to anyone. He realized he had been talking freely and frowned, quickly glancing at the courier waiting by the door. But she showed no sign of having been listening, probably engaged in some kind of meditation. Joru scoffed internally. Their cousins the Vulcans missed so much by suppressing their emotions.

xxx

 _ **T'Pau**_

T'Pau watched the council walk out single file. As the last man turned to leave, she called out. "Soval! I shall speak with thee."

Soval turned around, an eyebrow cocked in half-surprise. T'Pau and he had not spoken since his request to use the Orion transport. As he looked at her diminutive figure he felt a strange call to protect her, to shelter her from all other males, wondering if her small frame could bear the weight of a Vulcan man a hundred years older. He carefully re-ordered his thoughts to follow what she was saying.

T'Pau sensed another slight reduction in her level of stress. She could not understand why Soval's presence would have a direct impact on her limbic system. After his request for the Orion transport, she had tried to maintain a carefully neutral stance towards him. She was not sure if it was acceptable for a head of state to select as consort a council member. Perhaps he could still remain as ambassador to Earth. She carefully re-ordered her thoughts to focus on the information she needed to provide. "The Human starship Enterprise has located the inverted diffraction beacon. They are safe from a surprise attack."

Soval inclined his head in acknowledgement of what she had said, then looked straight at her. "The attack may still take place even if no longer a surprise."

T'Pau stared at him as if the thought had not crossed her mind. "Thee are a seasoned warrior. Sphelt grew up after the Treaty of Kah-Tan, he does not have experience with warfare. Vulcan needs help to undo the forces that would take it away from Surak's path. What counsel is thine?"

xxx

 _ **T'Pol**_

"So what else did he say?" Vrekaib was leaning over, too close, and T'Pol almost took a step back.

Instead, she glanced at him and went on with the story she was relating, not all of which was made up. Vrekaib unconsciously kept leaning closer, trying to capture every last word. He was tense with dread and excitement. The Romulan contact had been contacted by a higher-up. They had mentioned couriers. They were possibly talking about his network.

He got up from his chair and started pacing around his office. He knew it! They were after him. His only hope was to stay ahead of them. He would need to dismantle his side business, get rid of everyone that was involved - that would be the easy part. How much time did he have to hide before he was made to disappear. He looked at the Vulcan courier, who was calmly going on as nothing untoward had happened. But Vrekaib knew better.

It was good that she had no suspicions that the conversation was about him. He would keep her in place, she would be his source of information, and when the Romulans or the senior Matravekh circles closed in, he would throw her their way, throw off his scent. He licked his lower lip, relieved he had at least a partial plan.

"They agreed to talk again towards the end of the week." T'Pol finished, one of the final pieces of misinformation she would serve that evening, knowing it would guaranty her placement with Jar-ru for the next few days. She needed to stay posted in his office, the reference to Jivak had confirmed Jar-ru was the Handler. Once she and Trip were back home, safely away from the Matravekh's headquarters, she would share the news with him, they would figure out a plan.

Vrekaib nodded, stopped his pacing, rubbing his hands. "Good. Good. Keep listening, there may be other calls as a follow-up. We'll talk again tomorrow." He turned towards the window, turned back just before she left. "Oh, and there won't be any deliveries for me tonight. Go home and rest." He smiled wolfishly. "A reward for a job well done."

xxx

 ** _T'Agad Story_**

This time Sarek didn't wait for T'Agad to join him in the greeting hall. He exchanged a few words with the temple overseer and entered the long colonnade where aspirant acolytes resided during their training. T'Agad quickly got up from her meditation mat when she saw him approach, already knowing it was her he was seeking.

"Did you know your rebel friends left a honing device on Enterprise?" Soval asked without greeting her.

T'Agad reflexively blinked, joining her hands together and seeming to bow over them. "An acolyte does not have friends. She is bound to the community."

"Fine. Did you know?"

"If I did, I would have answered affirmatively."

Soval considered her response for a few moments. If she had answered affirmatively, her life would have been forfeit. How much could he really trust her? She had lied to him for decades while she was working at the embassy, plotted the death of her colleagues, was planning to kill him in the most atrocious manner. Lying to preserve her life was a small step in comparison.

T'Agad raised her head, looking straight at Soval, as if she had sensed his thoughts. "The moment I chose to become an acolyte, untruth left my lips." She lowered her head again, avoiding looking at him. Soval exhaled slightly but T'Agad didn't react. And Soval realized their communication would always be him talking to her bowed head. She would indeed never look him in the face again. He nodded in acceptance of her decision, however illogical it was that. _Kaiidth_. That was as it was. "Do you have any thoughts as to whom it could be?" He pressed on.

"An acolyte is bound to the utmost secrecy. Even if I knew about the device I could not tell you who told me."

"Since you do not know, you are free to hypothesize."

T'Agad seemed to hesitate. When she did speak, her voice was controlled. "A honing device can be catalogued as a weapon..."

Soval knew where she was going. "... and Poryk was the leader of the weapons cell for the rebels." He finished for her. He could have told her that Poryk was working for him but he did not want that knowledge readily available to others. "I do not believe it is Poryk." He said the words with the mental projection that his belief was based on unrevealed facts and not a personally-held conviction.

T'Agad almost raised her head in reaction. "Have you heard from Poryk?"

Soval's gaze softened at the question. "Not since we talked last."

When she had told him the device had been found on Enterprise, with untraceable Vulcanoid DNA, T'Pau had also let him know the information about the device did not come from Poryk. They hadn't heard about the weapons specialist for weeks and she asked about the possibility he was a double agent, gone back to the rebels. Seeing T'Agad brazenly ask about him and knowing the blood price Poryk had been willing to pay to be joined to her, Soval did not think it likely that was the case.

Empty reassurances were illogical, and yet he found himself adding. "The last news was of an important joint rebel initiative. Given his skills, probabilities are high that he is unable to establish contact for the time being."

* * *

Glossary

 _ohksaù_ (pl. _ohksauu_ ) - 'eighth man', Romulan military level similar to sub-lieutenant.

 _lelehksaù_ \- Romulan military level similar to centurion.


	42. The Forest 42 - The Storm

_**Trip**_

Trip quickly grabbed the half-mask and shoved it over his head as he strode to the door. "I'll get it!" he called out to T'Pol before she could get up from her meditation pad. She had not been having as much difficulty meditating lately. Finding out the identity of the Handler and that Spivac was her would-be killer, however obscure his motives, had re-established some level of certainty that allowed her to meditate.

He had no idea who might be calling on them at this time of the night, but Trip's jaw almost hit the floor when he opened the door on Poryk. He simply stood staring at the Vulcan until the man broke the spell. "Should I enter?"

"Yes, yes." Trip stepped aside to let him in. "But we haven't seen you in ages. Where have you been?!"

Poryk shook the rain off his coat, saluting with a glance T'Pol who had emerged from her meditation and joined them. He turned back to Trip, who was secretly pleased that Poryk didn't act as if he and T'Pol had a special rapport. His pleasure was quickly overcome by what Poryk said next. "I came to warn you."

"Warn me? Warn me of what? What is going on?"

T'Pol had stepped in to stand by him and he appreciated her presence at his side. She didn't say a word, just looked at Poryk silently. This seemed to prompt the rebel to talk. He took both of them in at a glance. "The initiative is being accelerated. There won't be another assembly. Instead, the ships will start on their mission."

Trip narrowed his eyes. "Are they going to attack Enterprise?"

"Yes, the plans are being revealed slowly down the ranks. As I am the leader of the weapons cell, I was told the objective two nights ago. Enterprise is a target. "

"What about us?" Trip remembered Spivac's threat that he would be piloting an attack vessel against his own ship.

"There is much debate about your place. Spivac wants you to fly one of the attack crafts."

"Never!" Trip jumped to his feet, started pacing around the small room. "I will never lead a ship against Enteprise."

Poryk looked at T'Pol and Trip has a sense some unspoken communication was going on between them. "T'Pol will stay behind." He said by way of an explanation. T'Pol crossed her hands behind her back, seeming completely at ease, but Trip could feel the bond vibrate with unchecked anxiety. He understood what Poryk was hinting at. It was as he had figured. "So that's the bargain, uh?" His own accent was thick with stress.

"We need to leave." T'Pol was looking at him as if Poryk wasn't there. This time Trip found himself on the other side of that argument. "Uh-uh. No we don't. Not when we're that close to the objective."

"You are close to the objective?" Poryk was now the one trying to figure out what was going on.

Trip didn't pay any attention to him. He was focused on T'Pol. "We still have time. The attack is not launching for another week. That's enough time to get the data, leave and find a hiding place." T'Pol and him had been spending their evenings trying to figure out how to access the data that must be in that office and come out alive. While at the same time creating an ongoing dialogue that kept Vrekaib engaged in keeping T'Pol posted in the Romulan's office yet feeling he still had time to act.

He turned to Poryk. "Do you know of a good hiding place?"

"That won't be a problem." T'Pol interjected. "Vrekaib's customers know of many such places."

Trip nodded. Of course, he hadn't thought of it.

"You are close to the objective?" Poryk asked again, still trying to make sense of the short-hand conversation.

"The mission -" "We have established the identity of the Handler." Both Trip and T'Pol spoke at the same time. Poryk looked from one to the other. "You know who the Handler is?" The Vulcan weapons man was trying to catch up to the new development.

"His name is Jar-ru. He is a senior Romulan official at the Matravekh headquarters."

Trip eyed T'Pol narrowly. He would have perhaps withheld that information from Poryk. One could not be too cautious around the rebels.

Poryk cocked his head to the side. "I am not familiar with the fact that Romulan officials work at the headquarters."

"They do indeed." "We are working on a plan to extract the information." Once again, Trip and T'Pol talked at the same time. Trip noticed that T'Pol didn't provide much more information. It seemed she too was being cautious.

"You will need support. I will help you." Poryk stated calmly, yet Trip has a sense the man looked as if he had been infused with newfound life. "You cannot reach a a hiding place if you are both inside the headquarters." He added. Trip had a smidgen of suspicion that Poryk offered his help a little too readily. On the other hand, he wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

xxx

 _ **Sphelt**_

Sphelt strode towards the security chambers, mindless of the people milling around on the Plaza of Solitude and of the semi-raised eyebrows that greeted his overly fast pace. He had just come back from T'Pau's chambers. Outsiders might interpret the speed and length of his stride as a sign that he was somehow upset. Those outsiders would be wrong. Sphelt was not upset. He was aware that his eartips were green but that too was not a sign of emotional duress. The simple matter was that the minister of security was faced with an impossibility. And impossibilities were in themselves illogical. Therefore there was a flaw in his thought process. That was inconvenient, but not a reason for upset. Once he identified the flaw, the solution would be readily available.

He had reported to T'Pau that once again the third shipment had been intercepted. And he had had to report that once again there was no source to be found. His special forces had been tracking every member of the council for months now, in council and in their private lives, at enormous actual and potential cost. The attack on their privacy would have been enough to have them arrested and him thrown out of the ministry of security. And yet, there was nothing to report. He had his forces track Ambassador Soval's every movement, and even T'Pau's, however unlikely her involvement. There was nothing there that was hidden. His position at the ministry was safe as long as T'Pau never learned he had her spied upon. And if she did learn it, probabilities were that she could be brought to understand the logic that had propelled him.

Anyone that had any contact with anyone under surveillance had been checked as well. T'Agad hadn't left her monastery and there had been no subspatial communication out of it. The acolytes still used chisel and rock as far as he could tell. Soval and T'Pau were an unbounded pair and neither of them had many contacts outside of their work. Not all of the other council members were loyal to T'Pau, he would eventually be able to tell her which were not, but they kept their dissension within the circle of their friends and family. Everyone had been checked out, even the technicians who had set up the third shipment. There had been no leak.

Yes the pirates had learned about the third shipment. However impossible it was, there were no impossibilities. Something had eluded his attention. He would keep going over everything until he found it.

xxx

 _ **Somewhere in Romulan space**_

It started with a flickering deep inside the cold steel walls, a small spark inside one of many hundreds of containers, all dented and rusted from obvious use. The spark seemed to hesitate as if it were soon going to retract and leave the emptiness of the small casing, but then it puffed up from the trace nutrients still in the air inside it, greedily licking its way up the tall cylindrical channel to the pointed space at its top. There, the flame met its activator, erupting into a larger flame, the fire spreading instantaneously to the hundreds of other containers, all exploding in a symphony of light and colors, all sound drowned by the velvet of space.

From the outside, the explosion looked like a slowly unfurling flower, a weirdly shaped sun suddenly rising on a new world, the hot white glow at its center celebrated by an aureole of greens and blues and purples, before spreading outward to obliterate the cargo.

On the screen, the Prycopyrian Captain looked in stunned agony, its robe the deep shimmering purple of stupefaction and fear. It was not only the hundreds and thousands of credit profits that were literally blowing up in front of him, it was his reputation, possibly his life, and his crew's, the imagined transition from a life of relative luxury to one where he would be hounded by the Matravekh, having to hide in one of the least savory asteroid lanes, trying to eke out a profit from lowly scow-towers and never knowing when the Matravekh's vengeful hand would close up on its prey.

Further out in space, one lone Orion pilot heard the high-pitched bleep that the explosion had happened. Dozem waited until the coordinates fed into the central piloting computer, then laid a course straight to the location. Once they reached the site, it would be an easy task to locate Cathruusa. There couldn't be that many Minshara-class planets around.

xxx

 _ **T'Pol**_

T'Pol knew something had happened as soon as she walked into Jar-ru's office. The air was reeking of alien adrenaline. The Romulan couldn't see her from behind his wall of computer screens but she could hear his huffing and puffing and feel the unusual tenseness in the room. An aide hurriedly walked in, a sight she had never seen. Soon another aide walked in the room and went over to Jar'ru's side. She started carefully analyzing the situation, grasping at clues. One of the aides leaned over and said something to the Romulan, too low for her hearing. His colleague was visibly cowering, waiting for Jar-ru's reaction.

But there was no explosion, no bellowing of ire coming from behind the wall of screens. Instead Jar-ru reached over for the com unit, already dialing Romulus and the intel centurion. He had been right all along. It was small consolation, but the centurion would know that it was his, Joru's, report that warned of a potential action by Vulcan and the Federation, that issues with recent cargo heists were too coincidental. And now two more shipments had blown up, one within a few parsecs of Cathruusa. If it had happened while the cargo was in port...

He had been right. The conclusion was self-evident. The Federation knew about the Matravekh and the plans to weaken it. The explosion had been a message, a shortcut to let Romulus know they were on the hunt. His gaze washed over the Vulcan courier, not even seeing her. He had other things to do, plans to set into motion. He turned back to the first aide, motioning his agreement. They needed to send an alert message to the entire network.

xxx

 _ **Romulus**_

The centurion shut down the com and shrugged. Impermanence was a hallmark of the job, someone would come up with a plan, sometimes decades would go by before the plan came to fruition, then something would happen and the plan would have to be abandoned, and another plan would be concocted from the myriad of open possibilities.

The Matravekh run had been a good one, they had sowed the seeds of hesitation among many worlds inclined to join the Federation. Feurata had been the latest example. Perhaps they would not reach Gamma Vedra III, but then those types of political victory were short-lived anyway, marked in months, not years. An entire structure of power could shift in only a few months. He had enough life experience to know. The silent revolution on Vulcan led by T'Pau was one example. He could not predict the future, he could only try to influence it for the good of the Empire.

He reached out to the bell that would call the _ohksauu_ in but did not complete the gesture. He'd prepared plans on how he would dissemble the Matravekh unit from the moment he managed to convinced the emperor chambermain that his initiative was worth putting in motion. Anyone who'd had any contact with the unit would be discarded, unless they could be recycled for another initiative, like the Romulans among them. That was why he never intervened whenever anyone loosely connected with the operation grabbed the opportunity for their own benefice. They would all end up dying early anyway.

It would take months to clean up all traces of the initiative and finish dispatching all external actors. He had time ahead of him. Actually, he could start the process himself.

A visit to Cathruusa was in order. He completed the call to the ohksauu. He would ask them to prepare his flagship.

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

"What happened?" Trip whispered to T'Pol as soon as they stepped out of the headquarters into the dead of the night. She cocked her head to the side and let him catch up with her, there was nobody out in the streets so late into the night.

"I am not sure. Something went awry with one of the deliveries. Jar-ru had a stream of visitors throughout the day and kept me busy going from office to office."

Trip nodded. He'd whiled the hours unobtrusively touring the fifth floor, confirming the neatly laid-out plans he had already made of the space. He needed to shift a couple of walls about thirty centimeters in, but otherwise reality matched his plans quite nicely. "But he finally let you go?"

T'Pol threw a side glance at him, even if she could hardly make his features in the shadows of the night. "Several of the other Romulan officials gathered in his office. He obviously did not want me to listen in."

"Do you think he suspects?" Trip asked.

T'Pol shook her head once, as if chasing a pesky insect. "He gave no indication he does. He did ask for the list of all contacts."

Trip slowed down for a couple of steps before catching up with her again. He knew he'd heard right. If the Romulans was preparing an all-hands communication, it was an unexpected stroke of luck. They had to act quickly.

Poryk was already waiting by their door when they arrived. Now that he had nothing left to do on preparations for the initiative, the tall Vulcan had been with them every single night since he told them that the initiative was being accelerated. T'Pol quickly updated him about the occurrence of an event momentous enough that other Romulans had gathered in Jar-ru's office. "Joru" Poryk corrected. "His name is Joru."

"We have to act now!" Trip quickly interjected in the middle of T'Pol's recounting of the day's events. His status as a Human allowed him to jump ahead where Poryk and T'Pol were afraid to thread. They had to carefully proceed, rationally, logically, while he raced to the foregone conclusion and waited for them to get there on their own, raising any tidbit he may not have thought about. As expected, his sortie was met with a range of cocked eyebrows. He raised his eyebrows at them in return, as a bid for a little bit more speed in the decision-making way.

By the time Poryk left that evening, the plan had been laid. T'Pol would confirm when Joru had sent a message to all operatives. Once that was done, she would use the first opportunity to access the data through her hand-held scanner. Optimally, the data extraction would take place towards the end of the day, to facilitate their egress from the Matravekh's headquarters. They would come out through one of the high-traffic courier entrances and Poryk would be waiting outside in a multim'rath, ready to whisk them away to a hiding place.

xxx

 _ **Soval**_

Soval closed his eyes briefly in frustration. Sphelt had just informed him and T'Pau that the third shipment had been intercepted, and there was still no clues as to who leaked the information. This time, it went further. The only ones who knew about the shipment, other than Sphelt, were he and T'Pau. Soval had considered and discarded the possibility that T'Pau herself was the source of information, preferring to focus his suspicions on Sphelt himself. The minister of security was ideally located to share information without being intercepted by a listening device. He eyed the minister closely, wondering if perhaps Sphelt had been hiding his true self all along. If T'Agad could hide as a stalwart member of the ambassadorial team for years, it was conceivable that Sphelt could be aiding the Romulans while appearing to be hunting for the traitor.

Soval steepled his fingers at his waist, keeping his thumbs tucked into his belt. "Are you telling us the shipment was once again intercepted and we have no further clue as to how the Romulans acquired the information?'

It was only logical that Sphelt wished his ears would not betray his inner turmoil, allowing him to circulate through Vulcan society with all the reserve befitting his rank. But that was not to be. "That is correct." He said, knowing that his ear tips were signaling to the world at large this was not his preferred state of affairs.

"According to your projections, these sources will soon be dispatched by the Romulans. All we have to do, to paraphrase your intent, is wait for the corpses. Which corpses will increase the present enigma given the impossibility for us to interrogate them." Sarcasm was dripping from the Vulcan's voice as honey from a ripe tree hive.

Sphelt threw a dark look Soval's way but maintained his silence. There was no satisfactory answer that could reasonably be provided.


	43. The Forest 43 - The List

**_Somewhere in Federation space_**

Duarte Owens closed the door to his apartment, reaching to grab a hold of the door knob over the large duffel bag he was carrying. That was everything he cared about, the rest he'd left behind. The landlord would find everything exactly as it was, including the coffee pot with two-days old dregs in the sink. Duarte didn't have time to explain and didn't want to stay one second longer than he had to.

Something had gone wrong with the third delivery and he wasn't going to stick around to find out the hows and whys. He'd made that decision early in the morning between two strokes of the shaver. He would split and disappear, say ten or twenty years, long enough for everyone to forget he'd ever existed. Once they'd forgotten his name, he'd sneak back to civilization, try to make a go of it. Nobody would ever know what he'd been up to.

The motorbike's engine turned on easily in the cool morning air. Duarte hopped on, set the bike in gear. He'd leave it by the airport, let all of them think he'd gone abroad, but in fact he was going as far inland as he could. There were plenty of woods left that he could disappear into.

xxx

 ** _Poryk_**

Poryk took the wrap off the multim'rath, checking again that nobody was in the hangar. This was the rebel group's vehicle, to be used in case of emergencies. Only the cell leaders had access to the keys. These being Vulcan rebels, the multim'rath sat mostly unused, gathering dust. No emergencies ever happened, Cathruusa was as safe a hiding place as the rebels could have found, and their being Vulcan meant they followed rules. The only one to ever use the multim'rath was sometimes Jivak when he had to disappear for a couple of days and go meet directly with those that supplied them and other leaders, though never directly with the Handler.

But Jivak was not going anywhere these days, too busy spearheading the initiative and responding to Spivac's increasingly frequent challenges. It was obvious Spivac wanted to become the leader of the rebels. Views of him were neutral but they were also neutral towards Jivak, only in place through their ill-fated encounter with the I'Shlins. Unless Jivak shut Spivac down, somehow and in whatever manner, the group's view would turn that perhaps Jivak was not resolute enough to lead. Poryk had no wish to lead. Not that there was any way he could, now that he was in Sarek's employ. But leading required staying in power and while Vulcans were law-abiding to the extreme, they easily discarded their rulers as soon as logic indicated they should.

Poryk checked the gauges, engaged the piloting software. Lights and beeps resonated in quick succession, indicating the vehicle was still fully functional.

Today was the day. He would drive to the headquarters and wait for Trip and T'Pol to exit the building. If everything went according to plan. He would drive them to the hiding place that T'Pol had found. Probabilities were that the momentary absence of the multim'rath for the day would not be noticed. The rebels would discover that T'Pol was missing only when she and the Human did not appear at the next assembly. That would not prevent the initiative from being launched, it would only help avoid the questions that were sure to be raised. By the time the questions reached his involvement, he would be on one of the attack ships leaving Cathruusa, on his way to Gamma Vedra III or Enterprise, and a sure death when he refused to dive bomb the targets.

His thoughts turned to T'Agad. Logic dictated that he let her know he had died while attempting to protect Vulcan's interests, that he had been stalwart in his newfound loyalties. She may decide to find another bondmate or to remain an unbonded acolyte, but she would know her decision to bond with him had been validated. He would try to let her know.

He exited the multim'rath. It had been weeks since he'd been able to contact Vulcan and he had not been able to inform them about the accelerated rebel initiative or the planned attack on Enterprise, or that the handler had been identified. Now that the initiative was ready and his services as a weapons expert were no longer in demand, he could make his way to the storage space that had the signal boosting equipment and attempt to make contact again. He would only have a few seconds to talk, lest the signal be recognized as something other than a random alignment of _microfisbites_. He would not get a response, at least not before he left for the attack, but Vulcan would be alerted.

A sound made him quickly turn towards the entrance. He could not see well in the surrounding darkness, half-blinded by the light from inside the vehicle. He waited. There was another sound, closer. Poryk tensed, trying to see its source.

Suddenly Jivak stepped into the circle of light from the multim'rath, his gun pointed at Poryk. The weapons man blinked once and then exhaled. Aware that he was ready to jump him, Jivak aligned his weapon to Poryk's head. "Do... not... move..."

xxx

 _ **Orions**_

Ngekkom warched Reldair from the captain's seat, the planet seeming to slowly rotate between the steel grey cap covering its left half and the orange skies on the right side. One week of drenching rains followed by one week of hot dryness, a curious climatographic phenomenon. But he wasnt there for the weather, his mission and only goal was to whisk away two Vulcans and one Human, like trade merchandise. His holds were already full of such merchandise, to provide a cover against bureaucratic meddling. Though to judge by the supreme disinterest of the spaceport controller that gave them a berth, bureaucratic meddling was not high on the list of obstacles they would encounter. Cathruusa's reputation as a haven of illegalities was well entrenched and seemingly well-deserved.

But first he needed to locate the prize. He turned to Dozem "Do you have the subspace comm coordinates? Remember what the Vulcans said. Three short bursts, two seconds apart."

xxx

 _ **Poryk**_

Poryk felt the vibration in the inside pocket in the lapel of his robe, controlled the rise of his eyebrows. He had almost convinced Jivak about his need to borrow the group's multim'rath for a short stint. If his mind at been at ease he would have calculated the odds that the communicator hidden inside his lapel would start buzzing at the exact same time he had finally convinced Jivak of the logic of his request to borrow the multim'rath for the day.

But his mind was not at ease and instead Poryk thought of alternate realities, ones where the communicator didn't buzz at the exact wrong time, or where Jivak had a hearing defect. He tried to ignore the sound, in the illogical hope that Jivak would not hear it. But Jivak was a Vulcan, and to Vulcan ears the vibrating sounded loud and clear.

Again Jivak raised his weapon at Poryk's head. "Explain why you have a stealth communicator on you."

Poryk looked down and to the right. There was no further possible dissemblance. He slowly raised a hand to show Jivak there was no threat in it and reached into the lining of his robe, trying to think of some logical explanation that would appease Jivak's suspicions. There was nothing he could say except the truth. The thought struck him that he most probably would not even get to refuse to attack the Federation targets.

xxx

 _ **T'Pol**_

She had been watching Joru since she stepped in, waiting for the most opportune time. The hand-held scanner in the band of her pantsuit was pressing painfully against her skin and she set her mind to a semi-meditative poise. The frenzied activity of the last few days had abated, Joru and the other Romulans had sent out a communication to all of their network, now responses were steadily coming in, chirping their arrival onto Joru's screen. He would glance up, note the content of the message, the sender, and return to his contemplation of the events that had led to the loss of the third shipment, to try and diagnose specific points at issue, unaware that all the senses of the Vulcan courier standing in his office were focused on him and everything he was doing.

The day passed like any normal day, nothing moving until the tone of the sky outside changed to blue grays and Jory looked up from his computer, realizing that once again he'd spent the whole day at his desk, that he needed to go off and oxygenate his ideas, get himself something to eat.

T'Pol kept her hands behind her back, unobtrusively stretching her shoulders. Joru was a man of habit. He would disappear for an hour, leaving her where she was, then come back, realize the day was near its end, and tell her to leave for the day, come back in the morning. She didn't need to make a detour by Vrekaib's office, tell him what had been talked about. More precisely what Trip and her had decided Joru had talked about. Vrekaib had welcomed the upheaval on the fifth floor, aware that this afforded him some more time to run his business and hopeful disappear before anyone caught up to him. Every day that he left too early would be one day less of profits, and Vrekaib was a man of greed, blinded to the reality that greed might well eventually be his downfall.

T'Pol would wait until Joru left then start extracting the data, finish before he got back. He would not know anything had been tampered with. Once he told her to leave for the day, she would go down the elevator with Trip, and exit the building like she had done dozens of time before. She visualized the way out, Poryk would be waiting for them next to the multim'rath, he would drive to the safe place while Trip and her crouched in the well of the back seat to avoid notice.

T'Pol saw that Joru had stepped to the door and was about to leave. He looked around his office, as usual, before closing the door behind him.

She waited a couple of minutes, aware he might come back for a forgotten device or for any number of other coincidental and unwelcome reasons. Then, when she had waited long enough for Joru to leave the building, she removed the scanner from her belt and, slowly and quietly went around to his desk, started scanning each computer internal drive for the location of the master list.

xxx

 _ **Joru**_

Joru took one last look around his office, taking in the tall windows, the ancient weapons on the wall, the upright Vulcan with the slightly unfocused eyes of standing meditation, and closed the door behind him. He would be back earlier than usual. Recent events made him nervous about taking an entire cycle to eat.

He sauntered away towards his preferred _kirrauk_ location, the one he ate at on the first day of every rainy period and the fifth day of every dry period. He would have gladly eaten there on the second, third, and fourth day as well, but he did not want to establish a pattern where the shop owner would come to depend on his patronage, which would instill in Joru a sense that he was supposed to stop there even on days he may have wanted to eat somewhere else. Joru aimed for a life that was precisely calibrated, where every element was counterbalanced in some arcane way that he alone was the master of.

He took off for the eating shop at a brisk pace. As he neared the eating place, Joru thought about the meal ahead, he would also splurge and have some stor'wu. He mechanically reached for the chipwalt in his pocket, thinking ahead about the amount he would spend. And stopped in his tracks, frowning, his hand feeling around for the octagonal chip that electronically carried all his information and that would allow him to pay for his food. But he came up empty. The other pocket was just as devoid of anything in the way of a financial chip.

Joru realized with a start that he must have left the chip on his desk, an extraordinary deviance from his usually carefully controlled routine. He could not remember ever having forgotten his chipwalt ever before. The thought was troubling. As he turned around to go back to his office, it struck him that the chipwalt may have been stolen. Perhaps as part of a broader conspiracy rooted in the Federation counterespionage services.

He hurried his step, anxious to get back to his office, find out that the chip had only been forgotten, and return to his eating foray.

xxx

 _ **T'Pol**_

It took until the fifth computer before the scanner registered signs of a recent burst of software compatible with an all-out communication. T'Pol quickly powered it up, letting the hand-held scanner run through the passwords it had been secretly recording since she realized Joru was the handler. It took two minutes before the right password combination logged her in.

She checked the time, Joru must be starting his lunch, and went back to the computer. Two thin wires came out of the hand-held scanner and she deftly inserted them into entry points. Soon files started streaming open on the computer screen as the hand-held quickly scanned the contents of the central processing unit, isolating all encrypted communication files. One of those had the list. The encryption software turned on next. T'Pol stood by the computer, watching as the information in the files slowly emerged intk coherent packets that could be read, not keeping track of the time. It would be at least another half-cycle before Joru came back.

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

Trip paced silently from one end of the hallway to the other. The fifth floor couriers were used to seeing him walk the waiting hours and he was trying to make his rounds in pretty much the same manner he always did. Perhaps he was spending a few extra seconds in front of the office where T'Pol was, perhaps his step slowed down and he would glance sideways, wondering what was going on the other side, when she would be leaving, if she would be able to leave, but there was nobody around to notice it. The fifth floor was known by few, used by fewer still. He tried not to think about the list of contacts she was supposed to extract from the Romulan computers, as a way of conjuring bad luck.

He had seen Joru leave for his usual late-afternoon lunch, not even seeming to notice Trip along the way. There was little to be feared from personal slaves, usually friends of anyone who was their master's enemy. Trip watched him get into the elevator, checked that the elevator had reached the ground floor, tried to project to T'Pol that the time was right for her to extract the information.

He had not way of knowing what was going on behind the closed wooden doors. He turned on his heel and started again down the hallway, knowing he would turn around before he reached the elevators. Joru would be back in another half-cycle. He resisted the urge to look behind him at the closed office doors, thinking instead about the map he had carefully reconstructed, every nook and cranny of the fifth floor, the institutional hallway that went down the whole length of the building, the two elevator doors midway, and, hidden at each end behind unmarked doord, the secret stairways that led directly outside.

xxx

 _ **Poryk**_

Poryk stepped into the Matravekh's headquarters, Jivak two steps behind him. He blinked as he passed the security guard but nothing happened. Poryk swallowed. There was nothing he could do except follow Jivak. If anyone learned of his plans, there would not be enough left of him to feed ta ronpaktu. Most everyone milling inside the building was armed, mostly daggers, single or double sheaths strapped across chest or thighs.

The tall leader stepped ahead into the elevator. Poryk kept careful control over his eyebrows when Jivak pulled a thin chip out of his coat and inserted it into the slot ahead on the wall. He had seldom been inside the headquarters, never to one of the upper floors.

xxx

 _ **Joru**_

Joru ragedly took the hidden stairs to his office, not wanting the guards to know that he had forgotten something. Carelessness was a vulnerability. It was the beginning of rot, the surefire announcement of a loss of vitality. It went against all his beliefs about himself and his role in life. If the guards saw him come back early because he forgot something, they would know he was vulnerable. He needed to make it so they would never know there was a chink in the armor, so they would see him returning from his usual late eating promenade and not be the wiser for it. He needed to maintain a façade of invulnerability.

He went as quietly as he went quickly, taking the steps a few at a time, trying to minimize any sound, even the displacement of air. He did not want to meet anyone else nor be seen by anyone. Swiftly, he reached the back corridor, the one only the Romulans used, without being seen by anyone. The back door to his office was closed, beckoning like a _lightalos_. On the other side would be his office, his desk, his chipwall. Salvation of a kind. Once he got there, he would be safe the world would right itself.

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

The elevator door opened and Poryk then Jivak stepped out. Trip felt the blood rush to his head. Poryk was supposed to be waiting for them in the escape vehicle. He hadn't considered the possibility that the Vulcan might be playing them, that he would be working with the rebels. He glared silently as the two men walked towards him, the weapon in Jivak's hands pointed straight at him.

xxx

 _ **Joru**_

Joru opened the door. His blood froze. The Vulcan courier was standing behind his desk. She looked up in surprise when he walked in, then down and went to grab something off his computer. Enraged, Joru rushed to the wall, picked up one of his antic guns, and fired. There was a cry and the courier fell on the floor, clutching something in her hand. Joru reloaded the gun and started walking around the desk to where she laid.

xxx

Glossary

 _ronpaktu_ (pl. _ronpaktui_ ) - a small furry animal with a tail, lives in packs, cat-sized.

Gamma Vedra III - where E is headed because they want to join the Federation

Cathruusa - space port on Reldair where Matravekh has its headquarters.

Reldair - planet in Romulan space

Matravekh - criminal syndicate financing rebel groups to destabilize Vulcan and the Federation.

kirrauk - hand-held food, similar in concept to a sandwich, made from two half-moons of wafers with filling inside.

stor'wu - sweet food similar in texture to honey, though deep red in appearance.

multim'rath - communal vehicle

Jivak - Vulcan rebel leader

Poryk - other Vulcan rebel actually on Federation side.

Spivac- Vulcan rebel acting as healer.

lightalos - some type of lighting fixture typical of Cathruusa.

Vrekaib - logistics manager, head of an unofficial corruption network.


	44. The Forest 44 - The Crisis

_Notes from the author: I try to keep every chapter around 3,000 words because longer chapters get unwieldy to edit and 3,000 words is a solid piece of reading for most people. This was going to be a very long chapter so I am cutting it short. Hoping it means the next one will be ready to be published more quickly, but I make no promises. Life is getting hectic, I am getting married next weekend and then off traveling for a while. But I'll try and get it out before I leave._

* * *

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

Trip would never know what came first: the report of an antique gun, T'Pol's scream, or the pain shooting through the bond. In the next instant he was rushing through the wooden doors, Jivak and his gun be damned.

A Romulan looked up midstride from making his way around a wall of computer screens and turned to him with his gun. There was a burst of flash and the Romulan fell backward, taking some of the computer monitors down with him. Trip looked back in stupor at Jivak. Did he really shoot the man? Before he could process further, a low moan brought him around the desk and on his knees next to T'Pol, who was moving feebly.

He easily picked her up, grateful for the many hours spent working on his physical shape. Jivak was at his elbow. "This way!" the Vulcan hissed and briskly guided him to a door in the back, then a side closet, another door, and a long hallway. Trip was surprised. He knew there were hidden stairs at each end, there was no way for him to know about the corridor in the back. Jivak was already pointing to the closest end. "You have to go upstairs, we will say you rushed downstairs to the exit."

Trip eyed Jivak, his jaw agape. Was the man helping them? He hesitated for a moment. "You shot Joru." The statement was half a question.

"I stunned him. Joru will remember you were the one holding the gun."

Trip looked back towards the office, where Poryk was kneeling by the Romulan on the floor, suddenly reminded that Vulcans could influence memories. He hesitated, causing Jivak to scowl. "Quickly!" The Vulcan moved as if to push him. "Some will come." Trip realized the other Romulans would be coming in to check on Joru, alerted by the ruckus. If he trusted Jivak, they might die; if he didn't, they would die. He started running down the corridor, T'Pol tightly pressed against him.

He was already two flights up, facing a set of metal doors, when he heard the noise of several men rushing into the staircase well, with Jivak's voice calling above the din. "Downstairs! They're going to escape!" He quickly went through the doors, leaving the sounds of the stampede behind him. He looked around. Another long corridor, half-lit, unevenly spaced doors all around that had to be utility closets or the likes. He started down the hallway, trying to listen to what was on the other side of each door. In his arms, T'Pol started stirring. "Sshhh." He whispered. "I've got you. Don't move." She relaxed back in his grip.

Suddenly a hand grabbed his shoulder and Trip almost dropped T'Pol but Jivak's voice was already in his ear. "This way." He whispered. He led them into some kind of equipment room. Trip looked around at the various machines cycling and rotating through their tasks. It reminded him of the engine deck on Enterprise and he felt safe. T'Pol was coming back to her senses, leaning heavily against him as he put her feet down on the floor.

"What happened?" she grated, her throat dry.

"Joru came back early, surprised you. Jivak stunned him. We're still at headquarters." Trip quickly briefed her. He felt the wetness of his shirt clinging to his skin, looked down at the green stain that mirrored the stain on her catsuit. "You were shot!" His whisper was rash. "You need help."

"The scanner was in the way of the projectile." T'Pol replied. Trip and Jivak followed her gaze to her hand, saw the cracked screen and body of the scanner, the dark hole at the center of a web of cracks.

"He used an old-style weapon?" Jivak's voice was full of interest.

"It seems the firearms on the walls of his office are not decorative." T'Pol replied levelly.

Trip snorted. So like Vulcans. The two of them discussing the make and age of the gun that shot her while she was standing there bleeding. "You are injured. You need care!" He insisted, hoping that would finally percolate to their brains. Thankfully Jivak came to his help. Or so he thought. "Old-style projectile. Is there an exit wound?"

It took a couple of moments for Trip to understand what he was asking. He quickly checked the back of T'Pol's catsuit, shaking his head. "No, no blood."

"Then the projectile is still inside you." Jivak commented. T'Pol raised an eyebrow at that. Trip rolled his eyes in his head. There was something to be said for cold-bloodedness, but this was taking it a smidgen too far. "So," he hissed, "we need to do something!"

"Nobody will look for you in the middle of headquarters." Jivak replied. "Poryk is guiding them away. They will search the entire town but never this building. When they catch up with Poryk, he will tell them he lost your tracks."

Trip thought he was going to lose it. "What about the wound?" He corrected.

"Are you in pain?" Jivak asked T'Pol.

There was a very slight movement of the head, Trip couldn't tell if it was a denial. "The whole area currently feels numb. I can manage the pain. And the bleeding." She looked down at the destroyed scanner. "But it looks like we may have lost the data."

"The plan wouldn't have worked." Jivak was examining the scanner. "The gates are lined with sensors that erase any data being taken out of the building." Trip narrowed his eyes at Jivak. It would have been helpful to have that particular piece of information earlier in the process. Jivak looked up again. "But the internal microprocessor might be salvageable."

"If we can take the data out of the building without triggering the sensor alerts." T'Pol replied.

"It would have to be encased in..." Jivak hesitated. "I may have a solution. It will require your collaboration."

"Forget the data, we need to take that thing out of you!" Trip suddenly felt very grateful that he hadn't had to deal with the Vulcan rebels on a daily basis. His argument was bolstered by the fact that T'Pol's legs suddenly folded under her and he grabbed her just as she was going to hit the floor. She regained consciousness in a few seconds. Trip looked at her with concern. "Perhaps now you'll listen to me."

"I am fine." T'Pol replied.

He didn't even bother to acknowledge her reassurance. He looked up at Jivak. "Can't we get a doctor?!" That was when he remembered that the only doctor he knew had actively already tried to kill T'Pol. "Not Spivac." He quickly added.

Jivak seemed to look straight through him, then he turned to T'Pol, talking very quickly in a dialect Trip recognized as ancient Vulcan. Obviously these two didn't want him to understand. Before Trip could ask further, Jivak was already at the door. He opened it carefully, peered into the hallway, started to cross the threshold. "Wait! What about us?!" Trip's voice stopped him in his tracks.

Jivak switched to Standard. "Wait here. I will be back." Then he was gone.

"What did he tell you?" Trip demanded.

"We're in the maintenance room for the inner building. Nobody will think about looking in here." T'Pols hair was plastered to her face, her eyes sunken. Trip imagined he could feel the pain of the bullet in her side, even through the block. He looked at her askance. Somehow he didn't think that was all that Jivak had said. If she weren't injured, he would have some serious words with her.

xxx

 _ **Archer**_

Archer stomped more than he walked out of his ready room, jaw clenched tight. He walked over to the captain's chair, turned to sit in it. "Ensign Mayweather, you're going to get a set of coordinates fed directly in your console. Lay the course as indicated." A discreet beep announced that the communication had come across the helmsman's console. There were a few seconds of silence as he retrieved the information.

"Sir?" Travis turned to the captain in disbelief.

"You've got your orders, Ensign. And yes, Starfleet wants us to return to Romulan space. I'm sure they've got their reasons." The clipped tone was commentary enough on the atmosphere in the ready room. Travis threw a side glance at Hoshi. In turn she discreetly looked over at Malcolm. His eyes and eyebrows let her know he had no idea what this was all about. And given Archer's mood, it would be a while before anybody knew. Hoshi resolved to take a detour by Phlox on her way to her quarters that evening. Since Archer couldn't confide in Trip and T'Pol, the doctor was his sounding board. She could always read Phlox.

Behind her, Archer hit the intercom button a tad harder than necessary. Hoshi stiffened, felt he same hypervigilance in Travis next to her. Times when the Captain was angry were times when they were both too aware that they were first in his line of sight. "Bridge to Commander Pantella."

"Hannah here, Captain. I'll get the Commander for you."

Archer's frown deepened as seconds turned into close to a minute. The place was not large enough that it would take Pantella full minute to come to the com. When he called Engineering, Trip was always right there, answering the intercom himself.

"Captain?"

The engineer sounded out of breath, as if he'd be running a good distance. Archer made a note to check with Hannah what exactly Pantella had been doing before he replied to his call. "Tr- Commander Pantella, we're going to need all hands on deck, make sure the engines are up to snuff. I expect we'll encounter hostilities, possibly a full-scale battle against a squadron of smaller vessels. I'm going to need speed and efficiency. What's the current engine status?"

The sound of whispers came up to the bridge. Archer turned to look at Reed, raising his eyebrows at him. The security officer replied in the same manner. Obviously, Chief Engineer Pantella needed to be briefed first. Trip would have known exactly the state of his engines and how much speed could be coaxed out of them. Finally the engineer's gravelly voice sounded on the bridge. "We should be okay to go, Captain. The beauty on the upper left stack has been temperamental lately, she needs a little loving, nothing that can't be cured with my magic fingers."

A moment of silence floated on the bridge. Hoshi had a hard time suppressing a snort. The least Pantella could have done was to rephrase what Hannah had told him. She wished she had eyes on the back of her head to see Archer's face. She wasn't going to even try and sneak a peek.

Archer found his voice again. "... Well... Speed and flexibility, Commander. I want maximum performance. Get your teams ready." He turned to the bridge-at-large, looking at everyone in turn. "You heard me. It looks like we're in for some excitement." He went back to staring fixedly at the screen, his jaw clenched. Behind him, Reed let a silent breath out. Battles were the domain of the tactical officer and it was only a matter of time before Archer told him exactly what had gone down in that ready room.

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

Trip wasn't sure how long they'd been in the room. He'd helped T'Pol settle down in a position that wasn't painful. She was right, the bleeding had stopped, the projectile hadn't had enough force to go more than a couple of inches, missing any vital organs. She had entered a light healing trance and Trip had nothing else to do but watch her. And think.

He was still trying to process Jivak helping them and he still didn't know how far he could trust the rebel leader. It dawned on him that it was Jivak who had saved his life on I'Shlin. Then why send Spivac to kill T'Pol? He had plenty of questions for the Vulcan when he showed up next, whenever that would be. He had no idea how long they'd been waiting already but it had to be hours. There were no windows in the maintenance room, lit only by the glow of various lights on panels but he was pretty certain the night had turned to day. If nothing else, his stomach was letting him know he had missed more than one meal.

It was comfortably warm. Trip checked again on T'Pol, the green blood on her suit was already drying to near black. He sat next to her, his head against the wall. There was no way of knowing if everything went as planned, if Poryk and Jivak were able to lead the Romulans away, make them believe the two of them had escaped. The thought crossed his mind that both Poryk and Jivak could have been killed by the Romulans...

When T'Pol woke up, they would start exploring their options. They would need to act fast, before he became weak from lack of food and she became sick from the projectile. Once they got out of the building, they would have a fighting chance. He wasn't sure how, but he would make sure they did.

xxx

 _ **Federation**_

Harris reviewed the daily report of disappearances or unexpected deaths among the thousands of potential sources they had been tracking for weeks now. The algorithm fished out anything that seemed suspicious. It was always a surprise how many suspicious events happened on a daily basis, but only a few cases had the right mix of variables to have Section 31 investigate.

The name that jumped at him, a computer technician that worked for a subcontractor to a subcontractor to a contractor for one of the Federation data mining centers. Duarte Owens. Disappeared without forwarding address. Seemed to have gone to airport but not on any airline register. Young and unattached. His not reporting to work triggered a security routine. Which meant he could have had access to Starfleet databases. If he knew enough to find the information. Experience had taught him never to underestimate what someone could learn to do. Harris reached for the intercom. "Ms. Nwabe, please bring up the entire file on Mr. Owens. I'll send you the identifier."

He frowned slightly as he released the switch, shaking his head. If he was the one, Mr. Owens had just raised his hand to the entire world. If he were lucky, Section 31 would get to him before the Romulans did.


	45. The Forest 45 - The Extraction

xxx

 ** _T'Pol_**

The noises were so discrete it was T'Pol who heard them, arousing from the light healing trance she was maintaining while they waited. "Trip..." She whispered. He had rearranged the supplies in the maintenance room, dragging everything that wasn't bolted to the floor and they were hidden neatly between two rows of what boxes that could have been chemical containers.

"Sshh..." Trip mechanically said, awaking at once. He carefully peered over the top of the boxes, hoping it wasn't Jivak come back with an army of angry Romulans or rebels. Thankfully Vulcans didn't see as well as Humans in the dark, giving him some cover. He recognized the silhouette of the two Vulcans who were hesitantly but quietly making their way through the darkened room, breathed a sigh of relief. He got up from behind the wall of boxes and they made their way towards him, obviously still not seeing him, going by the noise he made alone. The two Vulcans crouched with them behind the makeshift wall and turned on their comlight. Trip blinked a couple of times from the glare. He looked from Jivak to Poryk with relief. "I guess it worked?"

It was Poryk who replied. "The Maravekh security forces and I lost your traces a fair distance from the building. They will be distracted for days."

Jivak spoke in turn. "Hours, not days. We have to act quickly. They already have taken everything out of your lodgings." He saw Trip look up in concern, raised his hand in reassurance. "We had already taken out the plans. The security forces will be combing the entire town for you but not this building. They will never consider you could be hiding among them. And the building is scanner-proof."

Trip nodded, he could well imagine why. "How are we going to get out?" He asked. "And we still need a doctor." Just in case they couldn't see how pale T'Pol looked.

"An Orion ship has arrived at Cathruusa." Poryk replied. "They will take you away."

Trip looked at him in disbelief. An Orion ship? Obviously someone was not thinking straight. "So we can become slaves?" he jeered.

"They were dispatched by Vulcan." Jivak responded.

"Vulcan..." Trip hoped that made a difference. The thought reminded him. He looked straight at Jivak. "You saved my life on the transport when you made me T'Pol's personal slave. And you also saved my life on I'Shlin..." He didn't need to say more.

The tall man glanced at Poryk, as if weighing whether to speak, then back at Trip. "I am V'Shar." Trip saw that T'Pol didn't seem surprised. That must have been what Jivak told her earlier when he left. "Seventy years ago, I was tasked to infiltrate the rebels." Trip eyes widened slightly. He kept forgetting about Vulcan life expectancy. "There were some on the Council who were wary of V'Las and thought it would benefit Vulcan to maintain contact with the groups tasked with bringing us closer to the Romulan Empire. Becoming their leader was an unexpected development."

"I can imagine." Trip commented wrily. "Then what's the deal with Spivac? Why did you send him to kill us?"

Two eyebrows raised in confusion, one on each Vulcan.

"Spivac has tried to kill me and has been trying to get rid of Commander Tucker." T'Pol explained softly from where she was laying down.

Jivak's other eyebrow joined the first. "Spivac is a Romulan agent." Poryk looked up sharply and Trip realized that was news to him also. "I did not know he tried to kill T'Pol. He does not trust the reason you joined and has been vocal about not wanting you."

A Romulan agent, a healer and a would-be killer... Trip's head swam. He longed to go back to a place where people were actually who they said they were. Like Malcolm. Malcom who was Section 31. He couldn't repress a smile at the irony. The Vulcans looked at him nonplussed and he quickly redirected, looking over at T'Pol. "We need to remove the projectile."

"That is why we are here."

"But you're not doctors...?" Trip looked at Jivak questionningly.

"I have field experience dealing with wounds." The Vulcan calmly explained. Trip nodded. Seventy years experience meant that Jivak had a fair amount of experience with back-alley surgeries. "We will to need your help." Jivak went on.

"Sure. Anything."

Jivak crouched next to T'Pol while Poryk adjusted the comlight's brightness. The two of them spoke softly and T'Pol nodded once. Jivak looked at him. "She will go into a trance and Poryk will administer a nerve pinch but if the pain becomes too intense we will need your help to restrain her."

Trip swallowed. "Hold on! Are you sure..." He looked around anxiously but there were no other options that he could see. He saw Poryk lean over T'Pol, then the Vulcan moved to the other side of her, motioning for Trip to come closer. Jivak pulled out a a field surgery kit and a portable ionizer from their backpacks. "Right now...?!" Trip exclaimed. "T'Pol! Tell them..." But she was in a trance. Jivak nodded. "We can proceed." He looked at Trip. "Hold her shoulders." Trip grabbed her, still in disbelief. They weren't really thinking of doing this like that, in the middle of a maintenance room, without any painkillers, not even a drink? But apparently these subtleties were wasted on the Vulcans. Jivak took out a long and thin set of pliers, passed them under the ionizer and motioned to Poryk. Trip paled. Poryk handed him a fabric gag. "Prevent her from screaming." Jivak bent to the task at hand.

It took less than two minutes before T'Pol's eyes opened and she gasped. Trip saw Poryk apply a nerve pinch, but a couple of minutes later she came to with a gasp again. It took the combined strength of him and Poryk to keep her immobile while Jival determinedly dug into the flesh in search of the projectile. Trip had forgotten how much stronger than a Human a Vulcan female was and he hung on for dear life. But at long last Jivak crouched back on his heels, the brass-like projectile shining through the green blood on the pliers. Trip breathed a sigh of relief. T'Pol went limp and he didn't know if she had passed out or if Poryk had nerve-pinched her again.

He looked up at Poryk, expecting the Vulcans to let go of T'Pol and regroup. Instead Jivak was talking to him. "Do you have the scanner?"

Trip pulled it out of his side pocket, wondering what Jivak meant to do with it. The bullet had shattered the casing, there was no way to find out if the microprocessor holding the data had been damaged. He looked on as Jivak opened the broken casing and fished out the half-nail chip, then inserted it into a tiny capsule and passed it under the ionizer. Jivak bent over T'Pol again and Poryk crouched back in position on the other side of her.

Trip watched in disbelief, unwilling to believe what he thought they were planning to do. "Hold on a second! Youre not going to...?!"

Jivak stopped his motion and looked at him. "T'Pol is aware of it, we talked about it." So that's what Jivak and T'Pol had talked about. No wonder she didn't share it. Trip saw T'Pol go limp, Poryk must have applied another nerve pinch. Jivak turned to the wound, ready to insert the pliers. Trip moved to stop him. "No, you can't!"

Trip was chained to a rock, held by heavy chains while an eagle dug its beak and its talons in his side. He remembered Prometheus, condemned by the gods for having brought fire to humans. But he hadn't brought fire, he had just taken a list. The eagle dug its talons further, ripping his innards to shreds. He was screaming but nothing could be heard. His mouth was on fire. He woke up with a start, flat on his back. He sat up groggily, wincing at the pain in his neck. Jivak was passing the dermoplaster over the wound, T'Pol, was covered with sweat and unconscious, white as a sheet.

Poryk turned to him. "I apologize, there was no oher option."

Trip shot him a nasty look. He should have known better than turn his back on a Vulcan. He gingerly stroked the back of his neck where Poryk had applied the nerve pinch. "Perhaps some warning next time." In response, Poryk handed him a nutrient bar and a skin of water. Trip took it as an apology.

"There was no other option." Jivak repeated. "Now you can leave the building. The contents of the capsule will be protected from the data-wiping sensors. If other sensors find it, you'll explain it was a bullet fragment that couldn't be removed."

"'If other sensors find it'... we'd have to leave first. How do you propose we do that? Just walk out the door?" Trip knew it. These people were crazy. Vulcans were crazy. The whole scheme was the product of a deranged mind. He couldn't believe it would work. And yet Jivak was right in the middle of this madness, nobody would question a bullet fragment.

Jivak and Poryk had finished cleaning up. Jival got up, turned to Trip. "We will contact the Orions. There will be a disturbance in the electro-magnetic field around the building. You wll see the lights on the panels go off and flicker for a couple of seconds. The Orion's know where to find you. Do not move from here." As if they could...

"What if they don't come and get us?"

"They will." Jivak knew how to be a man of a few words. He and Poryk left and Trip made T'Pol comfortable, then sat next to her. They were so close to the goal. They had the list and hopefully they would soon be out of Cathruusa. At the same time there was a knot in his throat when he looked at T'Pol. He was not a doctor but he doubted this could be any good.

Xxx

 _ **Sphelt**_

"Kroykah!" T'Pau looked up with bemusement at the group of men who just strode in. She recognized security minister Sphelt and behind him two armed guards, their lirpas flashing their threatening grins. The interruption of a council meeting was a rare event, the entrance of armed guards within the sacred perimeter even rarer. She stiffly turned on the new arrivals. "What is this?!"

Beside her she felt more than saw Soval get up. He took a couple of steps in her direction, enough to protect her if the need arose, not close enough that it would be visible to those who did not know about their impending relationship. Which pretty much meant everyone.

"Explain yourself." Soval commanded. He eyed Sphelt carefully, sliding without seeming to on the balls of his feet, at the ready under his robe. If Sphelt made one wrong move, Soval would gladly unleash his forty plus years of suus mahn training on the man. He had always been suspicious of the security minister. Perhaps his suspicions had been well placed.

Sphelt looked around at the council members, some still seated, others who had gotten up from the seats at the commotion. "The source of information is in this room!" He announced. Both Kuvok and Volvic got to their feet, challenge-staring the intruder. Minister Thenan stayed seated, it was a cultural outcome of ponn farr that confrontation was the males' prerogative.

Sphelt was pleased with the reaction. It comforted him that he had been right, that his reasoning had been accurate. This was the moment of truth. What happened next in Council could mark him as a moron, the mark of his infamy to forever be part of children's rhymes, or establish him as a hero, someone to serve as a model of great behavior.

He grabbed a lirpa from one of the guards, turned towards the council members that were still seated, took two steps back and raised his weapon high in the air. "Step away!"

The threatening tone made it seem that he would be rushing Council members. T'Pau watched closely but did not order him to stop. A couple of armed guards did not an insurgency make. Sphelt was a man on a mission, the apolitical type. She trusted his loyalty, perhaps because of their shared youth.

The still-seated members prudently got up and drew several steps away from the council table, unsure where Sphelt was aiming but heeding his word and their instinct of self-preservation. Sphelt twirled the heavy lirpa in the air as if it were a baton until the cudgel was on top. He took another step back and swiftly brought the cudgel down with all his strength on the council table.

The lirpa broke. There was an ear-splitting crack and the heavy stone slowly broke into three pieces. But instead of falling to the floor, the large chunks hung in mid-air, linked to each other by a network of thin filaments worked into the stone itself. Sphelt grabbed the other lirpa and slammed it down, shattering the rest of the table and breaking the connecting wires. This time the lirpa held.

Those present in the council room looked speechlessly at the wires protruding in all directions from the broken stone table, alerting the entire council that for many years every last one of their utterances had been faithfully relayed to unknown factors. Silence floated on the council chambers along with the dust of the sundered table.

xxx

 _ **Vrekaib**_

He had waited too long and now there was no more time. Vrekaib feverishly looked around his office, but there was nothing there to help him once he had disappeared. The security forces had already come to talk to him about the Vulcan courier. How was he supposed to know she was an operative, that she and her personal slave had orders to kill Joru. But now that the Matravekh was looking into what she'd been doing, they were sue to discover the deliveries she made directly for him. All it would take was for one link in the chain to talk, and there was always someone who could be made to talk.

He rued the day he had first laid eyes on the Vulcan. They were a devious race, always hiding the truth, seeming to be upright citizens while they conducted their private schemes. At least Vrekaib was honest in that he was only looking for his own enrichment, he didn't pretend to be who he wasn't. He quickly went through his drawers, checking for anything he'd need. They were still looking all over for the would-be assassins, the Matravekh was not particularly fond of the Romulans, they would not keep looking forever. And then they would find him. That left him a little bit of time.

He pulled his coat on, the night was dark and rainy, nobody would be looking for him quite yet. He found his multim'rath in his usual place, put the lowest speed on and let the piloting software roll him out of the garage onto the cobblestone streets of the city. It didn't take him long to find his way to the surrounding highway. He only turned the full speed on when he was safely in the flow of cars. He'd go to his hideaway place in the northern woods, no heat, no electricity, but nobody for miles around. He would have time to figure out his next steps, hire the type of disreputable characters who wouldn't mind giving him a new identity. He would have plenty of money to pay for it. Someone else would replace him to keep the cogs of his little industry going, there was always someone. A few would die initially until a capable one rose to the top. That was how it went.

It was hours before he reached the path in the mountain that led to his lair. He left the multim'rath at the base, huffing his way up. He would get rid of the vehicle later, he had others in the hideaway. Fairly soon he was in his hiding place, turning the security systems on that would hide all light and energy coming out of the compound. He would be safe there for a while. He smiled at his ingenuity.

A mile down from where he was, the trunk of the multim'rath suddenly popped open. Two black-clad figures stepped out, the tattoos on their necks and faces marking them as killing commandos, the ultimate security squad. They stomped the wait out of stiffened limbs, looking up to where Vrekaib had gone. They all made the same mistake, those who would cheat the Matravekh. They invariably overestimated their cunning and underestimated the reach of the organization's punishing arm.

"Should we blow up the multim'rath?" The smaller of the two asked his partner.

"And alert him that we're around? No." The larger one smiled, showing his three lower canines. "I like surprises. A lot."


	46. The Forest 46 - The Plucking

_NOTE: Sorry for the long hiatus. Hoping to get this one finished pretty soon._

* * *

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

The meager resources the Vulcans had left with them were dwindling, and Trip was getting nervous. He was trying to remember what Jivak had said when he left. Did the man tell them when? He should have asked when. He sighed, brushing his hair back. Boy, he needed a haircut.

"They will come." T'Pol's voice interrupted his thoughts. She was seated in a meditation pose, looking none the worse for wear for having a list of hundreds of names somewhere in her abdomen.

Trip blinked, looking at her in the semi-darkness. He had also forgotten to ask Jivak where exactly he had put that damn casing with the list inside. What if it got dislodged? What if he had put it somewhere vital?

"You are anxious." T'Pol's voice brought him back to the boiler room, the equipment purring gently.

He looked around. The Matravekh's maintenance schedule really needed to be improved. It had been god knows how many days, and they still hadn't seen anyone come in to check the machines. If he were on Enterprise, he would upbraid the maintenance manager, put them on a tight schedule. But then perhaps they were already on their way, and then they would be discovered. Unless someone was bringing food and water. What did Jivak say about how long they'd have to wait? He should have asked. Before they ran out of supplies.

"Your anxiety is pervasive."

This time he looked at T'Pol, caught the raised eyebrow. He passed his fingers through his hair again. "I know, I know. It's just," he sighed. "I've never been good at waitin', you know?"

"They will come." Her tone was patience itself.

He was really so glad she was in his life. Sometimes he wondered what she saw in him. Why would a hyper-rational Vulcan stick with a smelly boy from Florida who couldn't sit straight for longer than ten minutes? Though, to his defense, it had been at least two days.

"Sixteen hours, twelve minutes and forty-eight seconds." Her voice interrupted his thoughts again.

This time he got it. He chuckled. "I guess my thoughts are bleeding all over the place, uh?"

An anxious eyebrow rose in response. "You are bleeding?"

"No, no, I mean, my feelings, they're coming through my shields," he hastened to explain.

"One might have said so in the first place."

Uh-oh, now he was in deep waters with a Vulcan. Deeper waters. He sprung up, he couldn't stand sitting any longer. "Listen, while we wait, I'll go check the machine over there. Never seen one quite like it."

That earned him a worried eyebrow in return. "We do not know Orion technology. It might be preferable to stay in close contact."

"Listen, Jivak said the lights would flicker. As soon as that happens, I'll be right back at your side."

She didn't reply. The choice was between having him huff around like a caged animal or take a modicum amount of risk to make her bondmate psychologically comfortable.

There was really no choice.

xxx

 _ **Somewhere in Romulan Space**_

The Romulan centurion shut off the comm and leaned back in his chair. The decision was misguided, it would end badly for all involved. But the time was not right to go against the group, not when he wasn't physically present at the meeting. And he didn't want too much interest to be paid to his whereabouts. He had listened as Joru related how the personal slave of a Vulcan courier had tried to kill him, agitating about conspiracies between the Matravekh and the Vulcan rebels. He wasn't surprised when the special committee agreed to go on with the initiative. Not surprised but not in favor of it.

Probabilities were 98.76% that it was a mistake. And he was certain he was not the only one to have figured it out. There were a couple of other centurions at the conference who would also know that, who would also have computed that going along with the initiative enabled them to get rid of the Vulcan rebels quickly and efficiently and at the same time sever their ties to the Matravekh, all without tilting their hand. Now that the Federation knew of their little scheme, the Romulans didn't need their support anymore, they could clean house.

Besides, there was a 2.31% chance that somehow the plan would work, that the Federation didn't know that Enterprise was the primary target, that by some miracle of timing or location or chance the ragtag outfits of small planes would overpower the prize ship of Starfleet. Not much of a chance, but successful battles had hinged on less.

Still, the centurion noted the narrow-sightedness of Joru, who didn't see other potential threats than a criminal outfit and a bunch of starving rebels. Of course, Joru didn't have access to any records of what happened, with the Matravekh's paranoia about being spied upon precluding any record-keeping. But he could have considered other possibilities. His usefulness, too, had run its course.

If asked, he would have claimed that Joru let go of the single most important reason for his trip to Cathruusa had nothing to do with it.

But instead the courier was nowhere to be found, in hiding some place on the planet, if reports were to be believed. He believed them. If they'd kill her or her personal slave, the Matravekh would be boasting about it all over the sector. Logically, she wasn't dead. Not yet.

So she was alive and on Reldair.

Though perhaps, the centurion reflected, he was showing a failure of imagination on a scale with Joru's. He absent-mindedly played with the thin dagger on his desk. He abruptly lifted his head, staring at the stars streaming outside the window. Vulcan knew of the Romulans' plans. All transmissions from Vulcan had abruptly stopped a few days back. If Vulcan knew, so did the Federation. And Starfleet. He'd gathered enough information about Starfleet to know they wouldn't let their resources go without the ability to retrieve them. Perhaps Starfleet had sent for her. He realized these were slim hopes, born from the shadow of despair. Illogical hopes, but still worth clinging to. The centurion leaned over his desk, flicked on the intercom.

" _lelehksaù_?" the skipper nervously asked. He was always nervous when he transported dignitaries.

"Get me the register of all deep-space transports that have departed from Cathruusa since the last wet cycle. And I want it updated daily."

"Yes, _lelehksaù_." The skipper shut off the com. There was a request he could fulfill.

xxx

 _ **T'Pol**_

"Trip!" she called urgently. The lights had just flickered, but her bondmate was nowhere to be seen. T'Pol strained to scan the surrounding shadows, but all she could see was a mass of darkness.

Suddenly he was at her side, miraculously plucked from the shadows. "Sshh. I was right there. Could see you the whole time." Trip mentally kicked himself. He kept forgetting what was semi-darkness to him was impenetrable night to her. "What d'you think-," he started to divert her attention, and was interrupted by a tingling sensation.

* * *

He looked around at the alien chamber in which the two of them had reappeared, his heart beating fast in his throat. Orions! Why did Vulcans even trust these guys? They were going to be processed as slaves, he just knew it. He crouched slightly, infused with adrenaline, ready to jump the first Orion who came his way.

"Welcome aboard, welcome aboard!" The Orion was huge, a towering seven feet of green flesh. "I am Ngekkom, Captain of this little beauty."

The man seemed likable enough. Trip shook his head, realizing the anxiety he was feeling was not his. He glanced sideways at T'Pol, who was staring at the alien with saucer-sized eyes. He could understand she'd be a little skittish, after being kidnapped and processed. And sold, he reminded himself. Yeah, that would dampen one's enthusiasm for anything Orion. He took a sidestep towards her, getting close enough that she could feel him but without touching. He would have cleared his throat but was hoping she'd catch on without the need for that.

T'Pol blinked, looked at him as if she'd just noticed him, then turned back to the Orion captain, squaring her shoulders and holding her hands in her back. "I am T'Pol of Vulcan, and this is my consort, Commander Tucker."

The Orion bowed, reassured that the alien male was under control of a female. He had no taste for perverted cultures where the females were the chattel of the men around them. Only trouble could come from upsetting the laws of nature.

"We will leave as soon as the shipmaster releases us," he obsequiously reassured his passengers. "He's in our debt, so it's only a formality. We explained that we were picking up passengers who wished to remain anonymous."

There was no need to explain that 'in our debt' was a euphemism for 'has accepted a small fortune in stolen goods', or that the shipmaster was well aware the Orions had just loaded a couple of hapless victims to process them as slaves but that since these were aliens, his absolute condemnation of the Orion slave business only carried so far.

"What about the Matravekh?" Trip asked. Then, when seeing the blank look in the Orion's eyes, "the place you picked us from?"

"Oh, that!" The Orion was all melting smiles again. "We were simply provided the coordinates and told you'd be around there. We set the angle of our plucker to twenty-degrees, we couldn't miss anyone in that room." Trip shot T'Pol a victorious glance. He could have gone to check any machines in there.

But she would not stoop to such petty victories. "There was an impenetrable shield around the site. You were not responsible for its interruption?" she prodded further.

"Interruption?" The man was obviously in the dark about what had happened. "No, we were just told you'd be there, given the exact time."

The Orion obviously felt he'd found a friend in Trip and proceeded to latch on to him with a barrage of small talk. T'Pol followed them out of the room, a small vertical line marking her forehead. It didn't seem possible that the rebels had the technology necessary to take down a shield like the one around the Matravekh's headquarters, even for a few seconds.

But Jivak had known the shield would go down. Someone had told the Orions exactly when and where to pick them up. Jivak, most probably. Granted he was V'Shar, but he'd been gone from Vulcan for seventy years.

Unless he was still very much in contact with Vulcan's security services...

xxx

 ** _Cathruusa_**

Fools. Jivak looked at the heads of the rebel groups in the room. In a few days times hundreds of small skiffs would launch from Cathruusa, aiming at the Federation and hoping to surprise one of its larger ships. And he had not been able to dissent, aware this might raise a cloud of suspicion. Even if they hadn't traced the introduction of T'Pol to the Matravekh back to him - fortunately V'rekaib had disappeared right after the events of the past week - it still remained that Poryk and he were present when Joru was attacked, and it was Poryk who had led the guards in the vain pursuit of T'Pol and her slave.

Which left him very little maneuvering room when it came to arguing against the decision to keep going with the initiative. Especially when Joru heavily leaned on the rebel leaders to maintain the set course. Joru, who, interestingly enough, hadn't mentioned the attack on him or the possibility that Vulcan and the Federation were aware of what was going on. Perhaps he hadn't reached that conclusion yet.

Or more likely perhaps he had, and the initiative was a clean sweep of encumbering collateral. Jivak had been V'Shar long enough to know the difficulties in getting rid of unwanted witnesses.

xxx

 _ **Orion Transport**_

"Captain sir" Dozem suddenly exclaimed. "A Romulan ship is approaching!"

Ngekkom woke up with a start from napping the hours away. "It could just be passing by." He got up from his chair to take a closer look. This after all might just be a coincidence, two ships crossing each other in deep space, by chance occupying the same square million miles. Even though his gut told him it was too much of a coincidence. They had taken the most direct way out of Romulan space, through an area without planets or spaceports, to minimize the chances of encountering other ships.

"They're hailing us!" Negkkum, his twin, was listening on the deltawave sensor.

Ngekkom sighed, looked around. "We don't have much choice. If we flee, there'll be a hundred Romulan ships after us. If they want to come aboard, let them. Be nice to them. I'll go warn our cargo, have them move to one of the holds."

The holds were set up to for prisoners waiting to be processed. He'd bring his passengers there, make believe that they were going to be processed, after they ironed out the details of how they'd gotten into the Orions' hands in the first place. Hopefully the Romulan ship was looking to plunder some of the cargo, would have no use for slaves, would not even look in the cell once they confirmed no Romulans were aboard. They'd simply leave with their weight in other goods.


	47. The Forest 47 - The Encounter

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

The door to the cargo cell opened. Trip was already on his feet, his back against the wall, ready to take down whoever came in. T'Pol was sitting on the lower bunk, arm pressed against her side, watching him and the door carefully.

The door swooshed open and stayed open. But nothing happened. Nobody came in.

Trip could see someone was there, standing, but he didn't make a move, just stood in place. Trip saw T'Pol's eyebrows arch with shock, her eyes grow bigger than her face. He took a step forward so he could see what she was staring at. It was a Romulan centurion, whose expression almost exactly mirrored that of T'Pol.

Trip looked at T'Pol, looked back at the man.

Almost exactly mirrored that of T'Pol...

The truth hit him like a punch in the chest. He kept looking back and forth between T'Pol and the Romulan, there was something about the eyes, the top of the face. He knew who it was. Steful. T'Pol's father.

The centurion was oblivious to the Human in his way, still frozen in place in the doorway. Finally, as if under some mental urging, he walked in, letting the door swoosh behind him, and walked over to where T'Pol was sitting. He fell to his knees, still looking at her, crossing his arms in front of his chest, fingertips and palms extended to her. Trip watched in slow motion as T'Pol slid on her knees to face her father, meeting his pose, extending her fingertips to him until they were touched and always touching, a lifetime of love exchanged.

The bond was resonating with emotions, a maelstrom of conflicting feelings, more than T'Pol or any Vulcan could successfully suppress. Trip felt like falling to his knees too, it was just too much, but being Human allowed him not to be caught up in the vortex. He still had the ability to think, in spite of the intense feelings. T'Pol's father, a Romulan centurion? On this ship as they were about to flee? It just didn't seem real. He mentally pinched himself. There should be Romulans swooping into the room right now, why was the centurion alone? Was he fleeing also? And where was the Orion captain?

Finally the two Vulcans ended their embrace, Steful got back up to his feet and pulled T'Pol along. She in turn extended a hand to Trip. The physical contact was not lost on her father. He turned to Trip, looking him up and down. "Is this your personal slave?"

"This is my bondmate, Commander Charles Tucker the Third. Charles, this is my father."

Trip privately thought that in terms of proper ways to meet his wife's father, this one really didn't make the top ten. "My pleasure, sir," he stammered, catching his hand as he nervously went for a handshake then stopped mid-air for a Vulcan salute, realized that wouldn't do either, and brought his hand back to his side. How did one salute an enemy of the Federation exactly? Starfleet manual was a little slim on the details.

Steful nodded, which Trip chose to interpret as a sign of approval. The Romulan looked around at the hold, at the two of them. Trip looked at him suspiciously. He had a few questions to ask. But T'Pol talked before he could, "Father, come back to Vulcan with us." Trip shot her a glance, surprised at the emotional plea and concerned at its timing. He needed to take her aside, point out she didn't know anything about this man, or not as much as she may want to, what he had done, who he was in the Romulan ranks, or how he would be received.

He cleared his throat in a meaningful way. That in turn earned him a stare from the Romulan. As if he'd read his thoughts, the man addressed the air between them. "I came alone. My escort is on the bridge with the Orion crew." He blinked, brought his gaze back to T'Pol. "I am sorry your mother passed away. But I will not go back to Vulcan."

"Explain." The tone was without any affect. Trip winced. Now T'Pol was going all Vulcan on Steful. The bond was painfully taut with her efforts to suppress her emotions. He wanted to hold her for comfort but was afraid that would overload her synaptic processes.

Steful paused. "I'm a Romulan."

T'Pol looked stricken and Trip took a protective step towards her. Steful nodded his approval and looked back at her. "What if I were the one to ask that you stay here with me, in Romulan space?" he asked.

"I'm not leaving the Federation," Trip shot back before anyone got any ideas. He didn't think T'Pol would stay but Steful was her sole remaining relative, and T'Pol had always been slightly more emotional than the average, especially since the Expanse. He wasn't willing to take chances. She looked at him as if she hadn't seen him for a long time. Over the bond, he felt her pain at having to part from her father. There was also, solid as rock, an undercurrent that she would not leave his side and Trip blushed, slightly embarrassed he'd needed the reassurance.

"You are a Romulan…" T'Pol repeated, as if the concept was too momentous to understand on the first pass. Which Trip had to admit it was.

Steful sighed, and Trip looked up sharply. If ever there was a doubt, this took it away. Vulcans didn't sigh. At least not unless they were going to attack.

"I am a Romulan intelligence officer. I looked Vulcan at birth, as happens with about 1.6% of our births, and I was sent to Vulcan when I was very young, as a child, really. I was meant to learn the customs and adapt, but there was never any doubt that I was a Romulan agent. Being an agent didn't mean much, at first. V'Las was in power and his interests were aligned with Romulan interests. There were many of us on Vulcan, sleeper agents, and life was pleasant. I met your mother. She never knew. She accepted the fact I was more emotional than the average, the same way she accepted it in you. I never thought she would ever know." Steful's voice went down an octave, a sound of loving pain. "Then, when you were thirteen, V'Las and Romulus became more active in trying to bring Vulcan and Romulus back together. After thousands of years. It was folly. The Empire decided I had the knowledge and seniority they needed, that I should come back and share what I knew. I refused. I did not want to leave your mother or you. I held fast for a couple of years but then they threatened to harm one of you. I had to leave. They arranged for me to 'die' in a shuttle accident. I tried to send you a message on your thirty-fifth birthday. Did you ever receive it?"

T'Pol nodded. Her eyes had grown bigger still. Trip felt through the bond that she was close to emotional overload. He quickly closed the gap, grabbing her by the shoulders. Perhaps he could help her handle her feelings through the bond, she could use him as a path to maintain control. He felt as if he had just grabbed two naked wires feeding into the warp engines. He tried to send her waves of calm, to provide a center for her to grab onto. But she was still in the thrall of an emotional storm. "Come back with us," she pleaded again.

Steful shook his head. "I cannot. I am a centurion of the Romulan empire, one of their chief intelligence officers. Even if I followed my desire to be with you, my life would be forfeit as soon as I crossed into Federation space. You would have only so many days with me."

Trip could feel that T'Pol was barely keeping herself together, barely registering what Steful was saying, assailed from all sides by feelings too powerful to suppress. He held on to her, projecting a feeling of peace and quiet. He focused on a vision of himself as the eye in the middle of her storm, her emotions were waves raging at the shore of his Humanity, thrashing about but unable to sweep through, his rational mind was the framework her mind could latch onto. Slowly, he felt her calming down. Eventually her eyes seemed to shrink a little. "That is logical," she replied.

Steful smirked. "Yes, the famous Vulcan logic. To be used when it suits one's purpose. I am glad you're like me. I'm proud that you were chosen for this mission, that you got the information. But,' he sighed again, "I cannot allow you to depart with it. Even if, as you know, secrets of state are fleeting at best." He extended his hand. "I need you to give me the recording device."

A surge of anger went through Trip. So, in the middle of all this, Steful was still a Romulan. He looked at the man with hatred. Steful's earlier statement of his guards being on the bridge with the Orion crew was taking the sinister tone of a threat. But then, what else did he expect? The man had already sacrificed a wife and a daughter to his master, the Empire. "The device was damaged," he replied. Let him know he was getting nothing of value.

"Let me see," came the answer.

T'Pol looked unemotionally at her father. Trip wasn't sure what she was thinking. She slowly extricated the tricorder from her waistband, where they had stashed it as part of their cover story, and handed it over. Steful saw the bandage. "You are hurt?"

"A flesh wound, the doctors will extract the bullet when we are back in Federation space."

"Make sure they do." He took the device, considered the broken screen, the split casing, without saying a word.

"It is damaged," Trip repeated, lest the man couldn't see if for himself.

The Romulan looked up. "I assume all the data was lost?"

"Yup." Trip was glad he was there. Rather than an outright lie, T'Pol would have tried to give a half-truth. This was no time for half-truths. T'Pol nodded without answering.

Steful pulled his phaser and Trip's heart skipped a beat.

The Romulan turned around and shot the wall, leaving a long burn mark. He then turned to the other wall, and shot again. He looked at the two of them. "I will tell my guards that I shot two dangerous escapees in the process of recovering vital information. We will leave now." T'Pol looked like a marble statue. He walked over to her "T'Pol."

She blinked. "Father." They embraced again. Steful broke the embrace and took a step toward the door. He turned on the threshold.

"May you live long and prosper, daughter."

"May the winds of glory be at your back, father."

Steful looked sternly at Trip. "Your being at her side is proof of your worth as her bondmate. May you both find fulfillment in each other."

"Will do, sir." Trip swallowed.

"And never forget that your father-in-law is a Romulan intelligence officer."

Trip wasn't sure if that was a threat or a tip.

But Steful was already over the threshold of the cargo hold. As he turned the corner, he paused, without looking at them. "Remember that secrets of state are fleeting at best." Then he was gone.

Trip turned to T'Pol. "What did he mean?"

"He knows we have the data," she whispered back.


	48. The Forest 48 - The Exfiltration

xxx

 ** _Poryk_**

"You will second Tarasis in the lead ship." The rebel in charge of handing out placements looked expressionlessly at Poryk, who returned his gaze with the same blankness.

There was not much else he could do. However illogically, he had thought his value as a weapons expert would preclude his direct involvement in the attack. Even more illogically, he had thought Jivak would find a way to keep him behind, to help with the V'Shar mission.

That he was being sent to attack Enterprise, in the lead ship no less, meant that the leadership was not considering him for the development of future weapons. Logic directed that they were not considering future initiatives or that they were specifically planning to get rid of him. That Jivak had not maneuvered to keep him back meant that he was not in a position to do so. Or that he was specifically planning to get rid of him.

Either way the odds of his survival were lower than that of a newborn sehlat orphaned in the desert. He thought about T'Agad, about how he would never be able to tell her how he had redeemed his past. He hadn't been able to communicate with Vulcan in weeks. It was Jivak who had been in comtact with V'Shar all along, alerting them to the danger to Enterprise and letting then know about Joru.

All he could do now was refuse to board the ship and be killed outright. Or get on board and be killed when he refused to attack Enterprise. Or get on board and somehow overcome the other two crew members and prevent at least one ship from attacking Enterprise. Or be killed in the process. T'Agad would still not know, but he would die having done everything he could to stop the initiative.

Since there were no remaining possibilities of redemption, that would have to be enough.

xxx

 ** _Trip_**

"You're not meditating?"

Trip had been keeping an eye on T'Pol all day. After her father had left, they'd gone back to their quarters on the bridge level of the Orion transport. This was the time when she should be meditating, bringing the emotions of the day under control. And this was definitely a day that called for meditation. Yet, she acted as if it was the furthest thing from her mind.

T'Pol slowly got up from where she had been laying prone. "Romulans do not meditate."

Trip rolled his tongue in his cheek. Yep, he'd kind of figured that'd be the issue. "You're not a Romulan."

"Am I not?"

There it was. Flexibility was not the strongest suite in Vulcans. Humans could believe one thing and then find something else was true and take it in stride. Vulcans tended to have more difficulty with navigating life's curved balls. He'd seen it when Archer found the KirShara. At least, his wife was consistently inflexible in her processing of what life threw in her way. He looked squarely at her. "Nope, you're not. You're a Vulcan. You were a Vulcan before we met Steful and you're a Vulcan now. And if you don't meditate, pity anyone who crosses your path. So, no. Good try, but you're a Vulcan."

"My father is a Romulan."

"Honestly, that's what he says, but I have my doubts. He looks like your typical Vulcan. And that story about so many births being like him. It could just be that his parents were Vulcan and didn't want anyone to know." Trip took a deep breath. "And even if he were Romulan, that doesn't change a thing." That was purposefully meant to confuse her. If he played his cards right, he could leverage her race's inflexibility. Show her how things didn't need to change. All he was doing was turning that characteristic to his advantage.

T'Pol eyed him suspiciously. "How does it not?"

"Who your father is or isn't doesn't change one iota of who you are. You're who you are because of who he was, it doesn't matter what you call him. And what you are is a Vulcan who needs to meditate to keep your neural synapses in check. Maybe more so than usual, if your father's Romulan. It explains how you are, it doesn't change it."

There were a few tense seconds when he was examined by two huge and unblinking eyes. Then she blinked. "Logical."

Trip let go of the breath he was holding. He couldn't help but be pleased with himself. 'Logical'. Seldom had higher praise be earned from a Vulcan.

xxx

 ** _Travis_**

"Travis!"

Travis heard Pantella shout his name, momentarily froze, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had come to the mess room for a jolt of caffeine so he could stay awake during the dullness of warping ahead to somewhere they didn't know. He felt it was his responsibility to bring the ship to the right place at the right time. Even if the right place was as wide as the seven seas.

Pantella was a jovial enough fellow, who should be in engineering coaxing the engines for every ounce of power, but the Chief Engineer was glad to delegate that task to Hesse while he lorded it over the mess hall. Even that would have been fine, but for Pantella's known habit to tell twenty-minute stories to whoever happened to be by, always finding some way to connect the stories back to him. Which meant that a thirty second hello would often devolve into a twenty-minute monologue on the talents of Pantella.

Travis stood there with a stiff smile while Pantella launched into yet another of his stories. He tried to nod at opportune times while he kept his mind focused on the coordinates. They were too broad. They had no idea where to intercept or what kind of ship. At some point they would get new coordinates or the ship would hail them. If they went too fast and overshot the new coordinates by a wide margin, they would have to reverse hard, a waste of time and engine power. And any number of things could happen while they were going back. Bad things, mostly. But if he could maintain an elliptical approach, they could drop down on the new set of coordinates like a falcon out of the sky.

He brought his attention back to Pantella, clearing his throat in advance of excusing himself to go back on the bridge. The small break had allowed him to think of an approach. Now he needed to put it in motion.

xxx

 ** _Jivak_**

"I will take the lead vessel." Jivak looked around at the five other rebel leaders. He knew that there would be no argument with his statement. The other leaders would manage operations from the rear but someone needed to guide the front. When he had waited sufficient heartbeats for anybody to object, he turned to Spivac. "You shall come with me."

"I'm a healer, not a fighter pilot!" The protest came quickly.

Jivak allowed a small measure of satisfaction. He stood to his full height, staring the healer down. "You placed a stealth detonator aboard Enterprise. To you belongs the glory of its activation."

"There are other better fighters than I. The device requires no skill to operate."

"In that case, there is no need for better fighters." Jivak could feel the anger emanating from the Romulan agent. "You shall come with us."

Spivac looked around the room then at Jivak's impassive gaze. He could not refuse without raising questions of allegiance. The leaders were well-armed, he would be executed on the spot. He mechanically prepared to jump on Jivak, realized it would not work, untensed his shoulders, relaxed his hands. There was still time. Possibly he could step away for a few minutes, not be present when time came to board.

Noises from the outside filtered in. The initiative was under way, rebels were lining up outside to board their skiffs. He needed to warn Joru. There was not time.

xxx

 ** _Poryk_**

The launch of the initiative had been chaotic, the lines in disarray as each the six rebel leaders tried to agree on what was the most logical approach. It made what should have been a quick and efficient process into a slow and spastic dance.

In the end, there would be one hundred and ninety-six light-bodied vessels launching, each with his signature weapon. Their entire front bulkhead had been replaced with a thermodynamic explosive plate. He himself had overseen the installation. If one of those skiffs breached Enterprise's defenses, it would inflict some damage. More than one, and the damage would increase significantly. Each successive ship that got by would further weaken the Starship defenses, allowing more of them to reach their objective. One hundred and ninety-six attacking ships, plus the element of surprise. And the starship would be weakened by an explosion on the inside. A few at least would get through. Enterprise would be crippled, if not blown up.

Poryk was close to the head of the line, Tarasis in front of him, when he heard the commotion behind him. He stopped and turned, craning his neck to see what was going on. The sea of rebels in line behind him parted as if split by an indomitable force. In a couple of minutes, Jivac was there, a dour Spivac at his side.

"I will replace Tarasis." The rebel bowed and stepped aside, letting Jivac step forward. He turned to Poryk, "you and Spivac are my crew," and hoisted himself in. Poryk swallowed. If Jivac was in with Spivac, the odds were negligible that he could overcome both men. Once the ship door closed, he was a dead man.

xxx

 ** _T'Agad_**

Tagad looked up towards the sun, shielding her eyes with the sleeve of her long white robe. Poryk and she were not bonded, she couldn't tell if he was still alive. She hadn't heard from Soval for several weeks, since he'd come by to let her know there was no word from Poryk.

Odds were that he would never come back. She understood that he had pledged his life to the rebels in the past, and she was gone from his life while he was with them every day. Odds were that he had decided to pledge anew to the rebel cause, that he would pursue his life in Romulan space, eventually find a consort there.

She lowered her gaze to the stonework of the main atrium, considering the orderly pattern of abstract beauty. It was only logical he would do so. And it would be illogical to regret what one could not change.

xxx

 ** _T'Pol_**

The heat woke her up. The room was hotter than normal. All senses alert, she listened for the sound of an alert or a disharmonic noise in the engines. But nothing could be heard. There was no fire, the ship seemed to be fine.

She opened her eyes but couldn't see anything, the entire room was blurry. She blinked several times, rapidly and hard. It was getting hotter but next to her Trip was sleeping, the rhythm of his breathing calling to restful futures. They would be back in Federation space shortly.

A sharp pain almost made her double over, stealing her breath. She waited until it was over. The room was still stifling, though Trip didn't seem uncomfortable. T'Pol touched her forehead with hesitant fingers, looking at the film of sweat on her fingertips. This was highly unusual. The pain came back, almost tearing a moan from her throat.

She got up, double over, and hobbled a couple of steps, taking rapid stock as the information filtered through her senses. If the room was hot, Trip would be sweating. The pain came back, intensifying its assault. She realized she was holding her side tightly, slowly released her hand, watching the dark shade of her wound through the gauze.

She went to the meditation pad. She would start the laddering of a healing trance to manage the pain. If she could suppress the symptoms long enough, they might be able to reach Federation space before Trip found out.

xxx

 ** _Archer_**

"Any sign, Travis?"

The helmsman stiffened in his seat. Didn't the Captain know he would let him know if he saw anything? "We're not yet in range, sir."

Behind him, Archer rose from his chair, started pacing, caught himself and walked over to Reed instead. The security chief welcomed him with raised eyebrows. Archer leaned over so he couldn't be heard by the bridge crew. "What d'you make of it?"

Reed knew what he meant. He shook his head, "the Vulcans have been forthright with the information. No news is good news."

Archer tapped the console, "we could be millions of miles off..." The communication from Vulcan had said there was a transport coming out of Romulan space with one Vulcan and one human on board. That had to be Trip and T'Pol. It had to be. And that it would be coming out somewhere in an area stretching hundreds of thousands of miles in any direction.

Reed couldn't help but think they would be millions of miles off. "We'll find them, sir."

Archer softly slapped the railing and went back to his chair. First they had to get in range. And then in there somewhere they'd somehow have to find one small transport. And with their luck that transport would be no larger than a shuttle. He started pacing around the bridge. The hell with appearances. If the captain couldn't pace, what was the point of being captain.

He was interrupted by Seagull who somewhat clumsily and obviously stepped in his path. "Captain" the Commander cleared his throat. "I would like to take advantage of the travel time to run a couple of experiments on the distortion of the _antisperac_ field in the region."

Archer narrowed his eyes at the man. Here they were trying to get Trip and T'Pol out of Romulan space and the man was worried about adding his name to a codicil to established research. T'Pol would never had done that. Rephrase, T'Pol would never have been so inconsiderate as to openly talk about the research, she would just have conducted whatever experiments she needed without drawing attention to it.

Yet there was no good answer to the man. What would he say? Berate him for thinking of scientific research when all of them were on tenterhooks trying to find a needle in a haystack when the needle was not even there yet?

Good might come of it eventually. He gruffly nodded his approval at Seagull.

Xxx

 ** _Trip_**

The Orion giant squinted at Trip. "How did you manage to accelerate another tenth of a psicom?"

Trip frowned. "It was just a question of calibrating the right and left field dampeners." He would have ordinarily enjoyed explaining, but right now all he cared about was getting to Federation space as quickly as he could. He looked over to where Dozem was paying close attention to the swooshing stars. He hoped the Orion was half as good as Travis, that he was following the most efficient path. He nervously wiped his hands on his pants, looking towards the aft cabin where T'Pol was burning up with fever, semi-conscious. "I'll go check the engine, be back in a few," he announced as he walked away.

He hadn't realized she was sick until that morning, when he thought again she wasn't meditating because of her father. He'd gone to give her a hand up, had recoiled, she hadn't reacted quickly enough to snatch her hand away. That alone should have let him know she wasn't feeling well. He literally burned his hand on her. 'Holy cow?!', he exclaimed, 'what in the blazes was that?'

'Was what?' But her evasion was unsuccessful, he was in on her. Perhaps he'd felt it through the bond, but he suddenly asked, 'let me see your side.' Of course, she tried to make him go away, 'there's nothing to see'. He'd checked her right there, 'nothing? Then you won't mind indulging a silly Human, will you?' His breath had caught in his throat when he lifted her shirt. The wound was ugly, obviously festering from below.

He'd hurried to the bridge, let the Orion captain know, ask him to accelerate, send word. The Orions were short-staffed and he jumped in as another deck-hand, better he could personally make sure the engines were going as fast as they could.

He couldn't believe it'd been only a few hours.

xxx

 ** _Ngekkom_**

Ngekkom waited until the Human left the bridge. The engine room was small and noisy, he wouldn't hear anything from there. He turned to Ngegguk. "We could get millions for the Vulcan female."

His brother rolled his eyes back at him. "She's sick and from the looks of it she won't live long. "

"I'm not talking your normal customers. There are warped ones who will pay a lot more, so long as we don't ask questions. She's going to die anyway."

Dozem looked fixedly ahead, wishing for the Human to come back. If Ngekkom went ahead with his harebrained scheme, they'd never see Orion again. He wanted to go back home. That's all he'd ever wanted.

Fortunately, Ngekkom's brother had more sense. Ngegguk was shaking his head. "I'd like to see you explain that to the Vulcans. No. We're done here. The deal was we bring them back, we get our ship and crew back. The ship alone is worth a lot more than we can get for her. And Humans have little value on the markets." Ngekkom was useless with numbers.

"Perhaps we can ask for a little extra...," Ngekkom kept pushing.

"You may be willing to spend another thirty years on that godforsaken planet, but I'm not. If we ask for extra, we're going right back where we were. It's not worth it!" Ngegguk was growing animated. "And Dozem agrees with me," he added for good measure.

Dozem froze. It was always dangerous to not agree with Ngekkom. But this time, perhaps because it was his brother speaking, Ngekkom didn't seem ill-inclined. "Fine, fine. I'll let them know we need to hurry it up."

Both Dozem and Ngegguk missed the sparkle in his eyes.

xxx

 _ **Soval**_

Soval looked up at the rap on the door. He knew before he even voice-activated the latch that Sphelt would be standing there. It seemed to be a universal constant that any news would come when he was in engaged in meditation. He straightened from the pad, squaring his shoulders, and looked at the door. "Enter."

It was Sphelt indeed. "The Orions are re-trading the deal," the minister of security announced as soon as he walked in.

Soval briefly closed his eyes. The fools. And yet he was not surprised. "How much?"

"Three millions for her, one for him."

"I assume that means they are close?"

"They should be getting to Federation space within a couple of days." Sphelt didn't wait for Soval to consider the request. "There is more. They say the Vulcan female is very sick." He paused. "And that they have other options."

Soval looked at the floor. The bounty hunters were not behaving logically. They would have left wealthy and free. Instead, they'd be neither. It was not his place to educate them. "We shall pay."

"If we agree too quickly they might raise the price again."

"Three millions each if they are delivered within the next two days. One million less for each day longer."

xxx


	49. The Forest 49 - The Delivery

xxx

 _ **Vulcan**_

"Still no word."

Soval looked carefully at the face of the messenger, checking for any sign of duplicity. He turned to look at the meditation space in the corner. The exchange should have happened. If one could call it an exchange.

"Were the credits accessed?"

"We cannot tell, Ambassador." The messenger hesitated, went on. "The credits were deposited with a finance center in the Orion belt. There is no indication they have been withdrawn, in whole or in part."

Soval looked down at his desk table. The Orion transport was on its way back from Romulan space with one Human and one Vulcan. This could have been a fact or it could have been a lie. The Orions had wanted to re-negotiate the delivery of their passengers, with the unspoken threat that they would otherwise find willing buyers. They could have been convinced by Soval's counteroffer or Soval could have been outbid by one of those purchasers. The Orion transport may make its way out of Romulan space or it may not. The Orion captain may make contact with Enterprise or he may make contact with other more nefarious interests.

Once again, a forest of potential outcomes open to one's mind. One possibility was that there never had been any passengers on the Orion transport, that the credits would be sucked out of wherever they resided in the Orion belt. It was the most outlying scenario, but it remained a possibility. The other outlier was that the Orion transport had indeed recovered Trip and T'Pol, that it would find its way out of Romulan space and meet with Enterprise. If that were the case, the credits would be transferred out of the Orion belt upon the correct key being provided. They would only know based on how the credits disappeared which of these scenarios was correct.

But Sphelt had seemed very assured that T'Pol and Trip were on the Orion transport. Perhaps the minister had access to information that Soval was not privy to. Actually, it was a definite that the head of security services would have access to more information than filtered to the ambassadorial services. Some of the branches receded, cut off. There were now only a finite set of possible options.

Something came back to his mind, one of the conversations he had with Sphelt. The Vulcan mind forgot very little. He had asked confirmation from Sphelt that there was a beacon on the transport. Actually, Sphelt had explained that the beacon had been integrated into the engine of the Orion transport and that any attempt to disengage it would cripple the transport. Perhaps there was time yet to disable the ship before the Orions could sell their passengers to other interests.

But they would have to confirm the transport was out of Romulan space first. A visit to Sphelt was in order.

Soval turned to the messenger. "Your service honors us. You are dismissed."

Once the man had exited his office, he reached for one his more ceremonial robes. A visit to the minister of security required a modicum of pomp.

xxx

 _ **Orion Transport**_

Trip swept the sweat trickling down his forehead with the back of his hand, mindless of spreading a thin sheen of coolant oil over his face. The Orion engines were models of efficiency. He was only making fractions of percentage differences in the outflow, gaining just a little bit more speed, just a little bit more time. And it wasn't enough. It simply wasn't.

T'Pol had been asleep when he woke up, at least she looked asleep, and he'd believe she finally had a good night's rest. Until it percolated through his mind that perhaps she was a little too still. Then he couldn't rouse her and he'd panicked, rushing to the bridge of the Orion to plead with Ngekkom to speed up.

He'd been a little surprised that the Orion captain and his meager crew already had the pedal to the metal, but he'd not paid too much attention. Who looked a gift horse in the mouth? He'd just thrown himself to work, shaving psicoms here and there, increasing the efficiency, the four of them working like a team to use any variables they could and keep going faster.

The constant shuttling from the engine room to the bridge and back meant he had no time to stop, no time to think, no time to consider what may be happening in the back room where T'Pol was unconscious, burning up with fever. Somehow it felt that the engines were her vital system, that so long as he kept them running, she was still alive. The rhythmic injection of coolant into the warp core was her heart still beating, the coolant in the blood in her veins, the exhaust out the sweat pouring from her.

At some point, he'd realized it'd been hours already, the muscles in his arms and legs stiffening from overuse. Still, there was no sign they were out of Romulan space. He'd run to their quarters, checked that she was still breathing, then ran right back to the engine room.

"We're coming to the barrier."

The words from the pilot reached his brain with a few seconds delay. Trip looked up blearily, scratching the day's growth on his chin. His fingers were black, he looked at them, thought about how scruffy he must look, and looked ahead at what Dozem had pointed out.

He'd never quite known what crossing to Romulan space looked like. The last time, he and T'Pol were in a small cabin deep in the belly of a Vulcan transport, only seeing the inside of its gym bay. He'd imagined it was just a question of coordinates. One set, you were in Romulan space, the other, you were in Federation space.

He looked with astonishment at the shimmering barrier looming ahead of the ship. There was no way of knowing what was on the other side. It reminded him of the thermobaric cloud barrier of the Expanse. Did the Romulans get technology from the Expanse? On the other hand, they were the ones who had that field of landmines around a planet. Trip felt his throat constrict. Were there mines hidden in the opaquely translucent barrier?

Dozem was keeping a close eye on his instruments. "I found the pass!" he announced to the rest of the group. Ngekkom and Ngegguk were seated, tightly gripping the arms of their chairs.

That told Trip perhaps he'd better do the same. He quickly sat down and buckled himself in. Then thought about T'Pol, who was not secured. He went to unbuckle, was stopped by a word form Negkkom "Not now! She's safe lying down."

Trip didn't have time to ask what to expect. He was projected forward hard as the ship hit a spongious surface, the safety belt cutting off his breath. The next second he was thrown to the side, the belt digging hard into his gut. He swore under his breath. Orion restraints were worse than having none.

The transport went almost vertical as the ship fought whatever insane protective shield the Romulans were generating. The buffeting went on for elongated seconds, the ship seeming to divert right and left, Dozem almost physically counterbracing to keep it on course. As if he could do anything.

The drop into Federation Space was almost anticlimactic. It took a few seconds for all of them to register the ship no longer felt like it was going through the drum of a washing machine, the stars were clear. Trip carefully picked his head up, They were through.

He unbuckled himself and rushed to the back room. T'Pol was no longer in bed. For half-a-second, the crazy hope seized him that she was fine, that she was washing up. The hope only sent his heart plunging even deeper when he found her lying next to the bed as he rounded it. Ngekkom obviously didn't know what he was talking about. He gingerly picked her up, bracing himself against the heat of her skin. He gently set her back on the bed. He had kept up with his conditioning and it didn't feel like she weighed anything.

xxx

 _ **Enterprise**_

"Anything, Hoshi?" Hoshi exchanged a quick glance of long-suffering with Travis. Archer didn't seem able to let them do their job without interrupting them a hundred times.

"Nothing yet, Captain!" She tried to keep her tone light and cheerful.

Which was not such an easy task considering how intently she was focused on the dials, trying to get a responding 'ping' out of trillion of square miles of Federation space. Overshoot by one degree, and they'd miss a band twenty-miles wide along with everything that could be in there. She frowned with the effort of minutely adjusting the dials, making sure every pass covered some of the previous pass, but not so much that it would become a self-defeating exercise.

The noise, when she heard it, felt like a jolt of pure electricity. "Captain!" she kept a hand over her earphones, pressing the bud tightly in her ear canal. Perhaps she had imagined hearing it...

No, she heard it again. The crystalline chime of a ship calling out in the void. "Captain!" she called out again. Archer was already behind her chair, squinting at the screen. As if there was any chance he could see a lone ship out there. "I hear it!" she half-turned to him. "A ship is hailing us!"

"Travis, can you find it!"

Travis' hands were nearly shaking with tension. Now that Hoshi had a hail, it was up to him to locate the ship in the immensity around them. Failure was not an option. He started silently praying to the gods protecting the transports, that somehow he would orient the sensors right, find it on the first pass. If he didn't, any successive pass would become harder, they wouldn't know where to start the search again, and the ship might get out of range in the meantime. He wondered what had ever made him decide to enlist as a pilot on a starship.

The next second he was looking up in triumph. His piloting instincts hadn't failed him yet, he'd gotten the echo indicative there was some structure out there, man-made. "I've got something, Captain!"

"Good going, Travis. You too, Hoshi. Now let's go see what we've got in our net."

Archer walked back to his chair, sat down. Of course, there was always the possibility Travis had found something else than what they were looking for, an errant transport, or an abandoned satellite base. But his legendary Archer's luck gave him the ineluctable feeling it was the Orion transport they had found.

xxx

 _ **Orion Transport**_

At first, he'd thought the transport would slow down, they were in Federation space after all. But it seemed that the Orion captain had no intention of easing up on the engines, and Trip was back shuttling between bridge and engine room, too tired to ask where they were going. If Ngekkom wanted to speed all the way to Earth, who was he to complain.

He was in the engine room when he heard the Orion captain hail someone. Trip looked up, suddenly anxious. Who were they hailing exactly? Werent they supposed to brinng them back to Vulcan? Were they calling out to fellow slavers? He couldn't hear what the Orion captain was saying over the noise of the engines. They'd been beamed aboard and all, but who was Jivak working for really? The man could as well be a Romulan agent, or be on the take just like Vrekaib.

Suddently, there was a responding hail. The Orions had made contact with another ship. Trip froze. If it took so little time for the hail to be answered, it meant the other ship had been waiting for them. It must be another slaver.

He looked around the engine room, checking for anything he could use as a weapon. But there was nothing loose or that could be pried off. He looked at the warp core. It would kill him, but if he threw something directly into the core... Soon he was pawing everything in the room, trying to find a give, see if it could be torn off. He couldn't let themselves be taken. T'Pol was too sick, they would get rid of her and then sell him. Nobody would ever know what happened to them.

The conversation on the bridge filtered to him through the poor quality sound system, so garbled he couldn't make out who was speaking. It even made the Orion slaver sound like Hoshi. He strained to listen, trying to figure out when they'd be in range. Then he would throw it in the core. Except he didn't have an 'it'. He still hadn't found anything he could use. If only he had his daggers with him.

The thought struck him. Of course, the daggers would be it. He kept them in their room. One of them would work, both of then actually. He'd go check on T'Pol, retrieve the daggers, and amble back to the engine room.

He wiped his hands on his trousers and angled towards the bridge, he had to cross part of it to get to their room. He'd keep it looking normal.

* * *

He stopped dead in his tracks, staring in open-mouthed stupefaction at the apparition on the Orion main screen. He blinked, looked around, came back to it. It couldn't be. Could it?

It was.

The Enterprise. Trip had an image of him staring agape at the ship, probably looked like a fool, little did he care. Unless the slavers had disguised themselves as the Enterprise?

The irrationality of that thought struck him. But how could they be? Where? An inner voice told him to let miracles be miracles. He wanted to jump, scream, run around the bridge, take the Orion captain by the shoulders and whirl him around. Captain Archer's voice sounded like the voice of angels.

He couldn't. He had to maintain some decorum. He coughed, trying to hide the grin threatening to break free. The thought of T'Pol suddenly sobered him. He waited for the tingling of the transporter beam.

But that didn't happen. It dawned on him that there had been a fair amount of dialogue since he first heard the voice of Hoshi in the engine room. And it wasn't looking like Enterprise was sending a delegation. He brought his attention to what Negkkom and Archer were saying, started actually listening.

"You understand, Captain," the green giant mellifluously was saying, "that I cannot allow anyone to leave this ship unless I have the key."

"And we cannot give you the key unless we have the delivery. Orders from above." Archer's voice had a fake smile in it. Something was going on. What key were the two men talking about. And what delivery?

"And I need time to check that they key is the right one," Ngekkom was going on, still all melting smiles. "As you know, we're well within the two days' range."

"Very well," Archer's voice carried shadows. Trip could tell he wasn't pleased. "We're sending a shuttle over with a medical team. They will give provide you with the key. Once everything is verified, they will come back with the cargo. But first we have a small matter to discuss..."

Cargo? what cargo? What were they talking about? Trip saw Ngegguk swivel in his chair, look in open-mouthed surprise at Ngekkom. "Brother?" the younger Orion asked. "What is he talking about?" Dozem hunched over as if he were afraid of what would happen next.

Trip felt reassured he wasn't the only one in the dark about what was going on. He crossed his arms, looking at Ngekkom. The Orion captain waved a hand dismissively at his brother. "Don't let yourself be bothered by it. They're willing to compensate us for our services."

"But, Brother -"

"- I am the captain of this ship," Ngekkom cut off his brother, "and I have a choice as to whom to deliver them to. The Vulcans better not forget that. Or we can take the merchandise and sell it somewhere else."

Trip narrowed his eyes at Ngekkom. He was starting to get a hunch what was meant by 'the merchandise'. Part of him was riled up that Archer had referred to them as 'cargo'. He'd have to take that up with his friend. Once they were safely aboard Enterprise. Which he was starting to get worried about.

"But our crew!" Ngegguk exclaimed.

Trip scowled at Ngekkom. Perhaps the crew was supposed to be the compensation. That would explain Dozem's cowering at his station.

"We can make a lot of things better with six million credits," Ngekkom cut his brother off again, "for them and for us."

Six million credits! That was nuts. They would never be able to repay Starfleet! Hopefully, Starfleet hadn't figured that out yet.

Trip swallowed hard. He should have had his hackles up. The man had been overly friendly right from the beginning.

He looked over at Enterprise, wishing to see a shuttle detach itself out soon. Hopefully, Archer wouldn't try and negotiate now. Of all the times to close his eyes and just pay up, in Trip's estimation, this was about the right time.

xxx


	50. The Forest 50 - The Fire

_More changes. I added a new Chapter 46 - The Plucking and also added Chapter 49 - The Delivery. Chapter 50 is the old Chapter 49, nothing else has changed._

* * *

 _xxx_

 _ **Sickbay**_

"What exactly did you think you were doing?!" Phlox was furious, the muscles on his neck jutting out. Trip balanced from one foot to the other, trying to see over the doctor's shoulder into sickbay but Phlox interposed his whole body, barring him from checking on T'Pol. Trip finally focused back on the doctor.

"They ionized the chip before they put it in," he hazarded a reply. He didn't think it would help to pretend he didn't know what Phlox was referring to.

"Ionized?! In a non sterile environment?! Do you understand they might as well have done nothing?!" Every exclamation point was marked by Phlox getting up on his toes. Trip had never quite seen him so angry.

"But she'll be okay, right?" he swallowed hard. He again threw a glance inside the Sickbay, trying to see past the white privacy curtains.

"Little thanks to you!" The mention of his patient served to calm Phlox down somewhat. "She's septic. I'm pumping her full of all the broad-class antibiotics on board and then some." He half-turned towards the sterile field.

"Can I see her?"

Phlox scoffed in response. "I wouldn't expect her to be coherent."

He finally relented, stepping aside to give access to Trip. "Oh, and by the way, that fake bullet you put in? Captain Archer has custody of it." Trip nodded absent-mindedly. He would have pointed out he wasn't the one who put it in, but didn't think Phlox would be a willing listener. As to who had the data, as in Vulcan or the Federation, it really didn't matter. T'Pol's father was right, state secrets were fleeting at best. All that mattered was that they got out of Romulan space and that T'Pol was in Phlox's sickbay.

At first he'd been overjoyed when he saw Enterprise looming on the Orion main screen, couldn't believe his luck. Then there'd been the tense minutes during which Archer haggled with the Orion over the matter of paying for them. Haggled. He still couldn't believe his best friend had been haggling with his life in the balance. With their life in the balance. Then finally the Orion captain and Archer had reached some kind of understanding and a shuttle had come over and latched itself to the Orion transport.

Except that hadn't ended there. It was Reed who stepped out, Reed and Dr. Phlox. Reed had perfunctorily acknowledged Trip with a nod while Phlox rushed to where T'Pol lay, obviously all these questions about who paid what to whom were of no interest to him. Trip had gone with him, then when the medical aide and Phlox had shooed him away, gone right back to the bridge.

To wait for interminable minutes while Reed downloaded some kind of software on the Orion's padd, apparently that was the 'key'. He didn't know what happened next but twenty minutes later the Orion captain had smiled and nodded, made some comment that the funds had transferred. And told them they had five minutes to make their exit.

Trip had carried a comatose T'Pol to the shuttle, held her the entire length of the trip back to Enterprise. The moment he stepped out of the shuttle on the floor of the Enterprise was one of the top ten moments of his life.

And then everything had gone to hell in a hand basket.

First, it was Jon and Malcolm, stopping him on his way to Sickbay, seeming very serious. Trip kept an eye on the stretcher that carried T'Pol, thinking they wanted to welcome him and he'd be on his way.

What a welcome that had turned out to be. Jon was furious, reminding Trip he was AWOL, had jeopardized he mission, letting him know he would throw him in the brig but for what he'd been through, confining him to quarters instead. Then Malcolm stepped forward with two of his goons, stiff-lipped and formal as ever, not even a 'happy you're back', and marched him there. He'd spent the rest of the day agonizing with worry until another guard detail came to bring him to Sickbay so Phlox could yell at him some more before letting him see T'Pol.

Cathruusa was starting to have its charms in comparison. He shook off the pall settling on him, relieved to see she was looking a lot less haggard, even if she was still unconscious. There was a sizable sterilization unit over the bed. But he'd got her out in time.

The sound of someone clearing his throat made him turn around. Malcolm was there, managing to look slightly apologetic. Trip understood. Archer had let him out so he could check on T'Pol, now he'd go back to his quarters until forever. He sighed. Now that he knew she was ok, it wasn't such a big deal anymore.

xxx

 _ **Bridge**_

Archer was elated. His commanders were back on board, the real ones, not the jokers Starfleet had sent as a replacement to rub his nose in it, and he was elated. Silently elated. And careful not to show it. Which was relatively easy considering how angry he was at Trip.

When he'd first seen his friend on that Orion transport, smudged all over with engine grease, scruffy-looking yet impressively fit, he'd felt like his team had won the national water polo title. He'd looked over at Reed, caught a rare beam of pleasure cross the British man's face, and the two of them had silently exchanged glances of celebration.

Once Trip was safely aboard, the happiness had turned to anger. The man had flown off with a bunch of rebels without even knowing T'Pol was on a mission. He was in deep trouble with Starfleet. And his Captain. Who on top of everything now had to figure out how he could get him out of court-martial. Because if he were, and things went even further south, Archer would once again find himself without his commanders. He knew that as one went, so would the other. And to top it off, he'd brought T'Pol back deathly sick, because of something he'd done apparently. At least if he understood Phlox's livid harangue, the doctor was almost strangling himself with fury. It had been touch and go, and he'd given orders to bring Trip to Sickbay so he could say good-bye, just in case. Except that this being a starship and all, by the time Reed's people dragged Trip's ass to Sickbay, she'd turned the corner.

Talking about Reed, he swiveled his chair around. The chief of security gave him a knowing glance and a nod. Archer swiveled back towards the screen. Time for the second part of the mission. "Travis?"

"Yes, Captain?"

"Set a course 500 miles parallel to the Romulan boundary, impulse speed, towards Gamma Verda III."

"Sir?"

"You heard me, helmsman. 500 miles out." That would keep them so close they could be surprised by anything coming out of Romulan space, but if everything went according to plan they would be right where they needed to be. "Hoshi?"

"Captain?"

"Reach out to Starfleet, let them know we're holding in proximity... but no exact coordinates."

He scanned the Romulan space barrier, shimmering in the distance, looking deceptively tranquil. He wished he could look through it and find out where the danger would be coming from.

"Everyone in my ready room, now!" Archer's voice rang over the bridge. Hoshi and Travis exchanged side glances. Now what was that all about?

xxx

 _ **Lead rebel ship**_

The skiffs were fast, built for attack, with little in the way of comfort or redundancies, nothing that would weigh the ship down. Survival was not part of the plan.

They had crossed Romulan space in record time, taking the most direct route out of Cathruusa, one that stayed away from planets and spaceports. They would rush out into Federation space like a swarm of hornets and lay a course straight for Gamma Verda III. Or rather, lay an intercept for the course that the Enterprise would follow to reach Gamma Verda III.

Jivak stored the v-pad back in its storage nook. Based on current information, they would breach ahead of the ship by a couple of hours. There were enough war skiffs to create a subspace distortion, forcing the starship to drop out of warp. To hope it would be where it needed to be was illogical. There were only permutations of facts and potentialities leading to different probable outcomes.

He turned to Spivac. "The stealth device is ready to be activated?"

A brusque nod answered him. Jivak allowed himself a small measure of satisfaction. Spivac must be in the process of determining the favorable outcomes of a range of potential actions, most of which logically involved getting rid of Jivak and Poryk after he detonated the device. Jivak was quite set on not granting him the pleasure. As soon as Spivac gave the order for destruction, he would deal with him. He thrust the comm unit at Spivac. "Stand ready to enter the firing sequence. I will let you know when we're in range."

Everything was proceeding according to plan.

xxx

 ** _Bridge_**

"Anything?"

"Nothing yet, Captain." Hoshi kept her features still in spite of her great inclination to snarl back at Archer 'since you last asked, I've gotten ten messages that the Romulans were at our door, but oops, silly me forgot to mention it!'

"Keep on it."

Like there was anything else she could do. Hoshi made minute adjustments to her headphones, straining to hear any man-made noises over the constant infrasound hum of space. Whoever said there was no sound in space should try to sit in her chair for a while. Space was actually a cacophony of belches and whistles carried along by clouds of gas and dust. She winced at a passing screech, probably from a long-ago-exploding asteroid.

Still nothing. She absent-mindedly started drumming her fingertips along the edge of her console. Come on, they had to be out there somewhere.

xxx

 ** _Lead rebel ship_**

Those who claimed Vulcan had no curse words were wrong. There were plenty, each more graphically descriptive than the one before. Vulcans needed more than a single word to encapsulate the breach of emotional shields that resulted in cursing. Jivak was V'Shar and had lived in Romulan space for seventy years, mostly among war-minded rebels. The range of his vocabulary as he strung together cuss word after cuss word impressed Poryk, who quickly made a note of those sentences that were un-understandable to him. It was most logical to seek enlightenment before their ship disappeared in a blaze of glory.

Which was going to happen very soon, based on all appearances.

The biggest appearance of which was the huge ship looming in the frontview screen, already huge even though it was hundreds of space miles away. A distance that was closing fast as the rebel armada had come out of Romulan space at full speed and was too shocked to lower that speed.

Jivak cursed again, drawing another puzzled eyebrow from Poryk. Of all the potential outcomes, the one he had not given weight to was that they would erupt out of Romulan space right on top of Enterprise. Not two hours ahead as planned, not two hours behind. Right on top. Which was not what the plan had called for. The element of surprise now went both ways.

There were two hundred warships in his wake, and an encounter with the starship was unavoidable unless they slowed down or veered off course. But an encounter with the starship was exactly what all the skiffs behind him were aiming for. A collision, actually.

There was no time to lose. "Brace yourselves!" he shouted at the other two.

xxx

 ** _Bridge_**

"Sir!" Travis bellowed, calling the bridge attention to the main screen.

They all looked up, staring at the dots of light that were streaming out of Romulan space, first one, then ten, then dozens. A stupefied silence fell over the bridge. The dots of light kept coming, one hundred, many more. The screen magnified them into individual ships, narrow-bodied deathly-looking crafts coming straight at Enterprise. None showing any sign of slowing down.

"Red alert!" Archer called. "Engineering, get us out of there! Warp five!"

"Captain! No!" Seagull shouted over the din of the bridge, rushing to explain. "They're too light and close! If we suck one in it'll destabilize the field!"

Archer nodded briskly. He'd seen the remains of ships flattened when that happened. "Engineering! Belay that order!"

"Captain!" Pantella was talking at the same time. "I don't think — OK, no warp."

"Reed, shields at maximum!" Archer was barking orders at fire speed. "Pantella, give us all the speed you can!"

On the screen, the crafts veered in pursuit of Enterprise. "Travis, evasive action! Let's try to shake them! Sankrit, aft sensors!"

Enterprise's head start could not last, the ships would eventually catch up. Archer's hands gripped the arms of his chair tightly. If they could separate the ships from each other, he could double-back and pick them off one at a time. He willed Enterprise forward with every fiber of his body. But the skiffs were too fast, swarming close behind.

The bridge crew watched in silence as a couple of faster ships separated from the others, coming straight at them.

"Mr. Reed." Archer's voice was calm, his command almost tranquil. The two ships exploded as Reed's aft canons found them. That was the signal the armory crew was waiting for. Blazing explosions starting dotting the outside as their weapons kept finding their mark. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

Except there were too many fish.

xxx

 ** _Sickbay_**

The doors closed on the guard detail and Trip approached the bed, glad Phlox was not around to read him the riot act again. T'Pol looked a lot better than the day before, when she had looked a lot better than the day before that. The sterilization unit had disappeared, as far as he could tell she was back to normal. Sleeping, perhaps?

"Hey, how are you doing?" he let his fingertips gently graze her hand.

She opened her eyes, blinked at the light, turned to look at him. "Dr. Phlox says I should be released today."

"That's good. I'll be glad for the company." Trip had been wondering how to break the news.

An eyebrow rose elegantly in response.

"Archer allows me to come and say 'hi' once in a while but otherwise I'm confined to quarters."

That bright the slightest frown. "Confined to quarters?" she was trying to compute what happened.

"Don't worry, I'm fine where I am. Can't get in any more trouble, at least."

He would never know what she was about to answer. The ship shook and the lights flickered. "What in holy blazes!" He was already at the door. The guard detail was nowhere to be seen, red alerts were blaring all over the place. The noise filled the entire bay. The ship shook again. He was in the doorway, holding the jamb for balance, preventing the doors from closing.

xxx

 ** _Bridge_**

"Behind us!" Reed yelled.

Travis was sweating with concentration, trying to keep the ship away from the armada. There were too many of them. Another two flew to the side. He couldn't keep track of all of them, dancing around Enterprise like hell-bent furies.

Two more explosions rocked the ship.

"They're using thermal heads!" Seagull yelled to nobody in particular.

Travis saw from the corner of his eye three dots separate from the main group and disappear. "Three of them!" He shouted behind him.

"I've lost them!" Reed shouted at the same time. The sensors were pointing in every direction, trying to get a trace back on the ships.

One of the three crafts crashed straight into the shields, rocking the ship. "Shields at 40%!" Reed called. Travis kept looking around. He had seen one more ship from the corner of his eye. Where was it?

Suddenly a junior bridge member shouted "Below! They're below us!" and he lost track.

"Travis!" Archer bellowed. He already knew there was nothing Travis could do.

Reed looked up, blinking in disbelief. "They're aiming for the engines!"

Archer rose from his chair "Travis! Do whatever you can but keep them away from the aft! Engineering! We need more power!" If they lost power, they would be dead in the water.

The ship shook horribly, throwing half the bridge crew on the floor. Travis braced his boots against the inside of the console, hanging by one hand, his fingers dancing over the controls, pulling and pushing to try and face the attackers. It was too late, The bridge went dark. Then emergency lighting came up.

xxx

 ** _Sickbay_**

There was another shock, then the ship buckled as if it had been hit by a tidal wave. The horrible shriek of metal against metal came over the intercom as the ship lurched. The lights flickered and went off. Emergency lighting came on, smoke was filtering through from somewhere in the ship.

The lights flickered back on, then Archer's voice sounded over the intercom. "Captain to Engineering. Engineering, please reply. Engineering!"

Trip glanced back at T'Pol. He was greeted by an elegantly raised eyebrow and the word "Go!" They would have countless future arguments about it, T'Pol claiming she never said 'go' and he swearing she did.

For now, he was already sprinting through the corridors to engineering. There was mayhem everywhere, corridors filling with smoke, crew members putting out fires as they could. The ship shook again. Another hit.

He entered Engineering at a run. The place was filled with black soot, keeping him from seeing in front of him. He almost stepped on something on the ground, jumped aside at the last second as he recognized a Starfleet uniform. Whoever it was, was still alive and was also much fatter than any crew member he knew. He leaned over, took in the horribly burned face and hands. The man wouldn't survive.

Suddenly Hess was at his elbow, coughing up smoke. "Breach on tube 5! Contained." She folded at the waist and started retching.

"Where's the guy in charge?!" Trip was already climbing up the ladder to the engine bridge.

Hesse pointed with her hand, still doubled over, "Pantella."

Trip wasn't sure if that was a name but if didn't matter. He was already checking the dials and gauges. He winced as the ship listed, first on one side, then the other. He palmed the intercom. "Engineering here. I'll give you power but please try to keep these guys off our tail!"

* * *

 _Notes from the author: I called this chapter "the Fire" because apart from the fire of battle, Trip may feel he went from the frying pan into the fire, with respect to his not so warm welcome aboard Enterprise._


	51. The Forest 51 - The Battle

Xxx

 _ **Engineering**_

"These shitheads keep ramming the ship!" Hesse choked out between two fits of coughing. "Last one hit to the right of Bay Two. The shock ruptured tube 5. We've rerouted through 7." She finally stopped retching, her voide hoarse from the inhalation of coolant smoke.

Trip nodded, his eyes on the inner temp gauge. So that's what happened to Pantella. Poor guy. "Give me the readings on the calibrator!" That brought a memory of asking T'Pol to keep an eye on readings from the engines, he couldn't exactly place why or when.

"Eighty-five over 350," Hesse's voice faltered. "It's dropping!"

Trip swore. "The engine is shutting down." He was entering commands as fast as he could, swore again when nothing happened.

"Seventy-two over 350" Hesse called.

He didn't need her to, he knew already. T'Pol would have known not to distract him, he wished she was there by his side. "I'm going to try and interrupt the shutdown sequence, don't want to do a cold restart! Brace yourselves."

Hesse looked at him as of he had two heads. Trip couldn't believe he had said that. The memories came back with a jolt. The hike from the Columbia - how could he forget, T'Pol the first person he saw when he arrived in Engineering. His reproach, 'Someone has not been taking very good care of my engines' and her sassy comeback "Talk to the Klingons about it", how he'd restarted the reactor while she hunkered down for protection. And then, he'd lay a hand on her back. Protectively, it'd looked to outsiders, except he knew it was not protective at all. He just wanted to touch her, to feel her warmth under his hand. Thank god nobody saw it or they'd have known straight away. Who ever touched a Vulcan like that? Uninvited, no less?

He brought his attention back to the engine. "Hesse, I need you to keep an eye on the delta wavestream. Keep feeding me the readings!" Those, he needed to hear. If T'Pol was there, she'd be the one doing it.

Now that he'd done a cold restart once, the motions were familiar. He went through them in his head while he watched and waited as the commands finally reached the warp core. The reactor hesitated, the vibration of the competing orders shaking everyone to the roots of their teeth, then, right at the point Trip thought for sure it would quit, the engine came back on.

Trip palmed the intercom. "Bridge! We've contained the breach. Please keep them away from the reactor!"

xxx

 ** _Lead rebel ship_**

Poryk had his head between his knees, a physical feat in the already constrained space. It was illogical to be so positioned when there was a battle going on outside the skiff. It was just as illogical to be as uninterested as he currently was in the outcome of said battle. All he wished for was for the motion to end, for Jivak to bring the vessel back on an even course.

Spivac stared angrily at him from where the Romulan agent was trussed in his seat. Poryk envied the man's imperviousness to the roller coaster motion. It had started right at the beginning, when Jivak shouted at them to brace themselves, before sending the ship in a steep plunge and looping back to find a place in the pack pursuing Enterprise. From that point, it had been a continuous stream of fast jerks and abrupt changes of position that made Poryk so sick that nothing mattered any longer.

It didn't matter that Jivak had let go of the lead position or why. It didn't matter that he would no longer try and stop Jivak and Spivac, and most likely die trying. It didn't matter when Jivak told Spivac to activate the stealth explosive. Or when he walked over to Spivac, who was too focused on what he was doing to notice, and nerve-pinched him just as he finished entering the code. He'd thought Jivak would dispose of him also then, and even that had not mattered. But instead Jivak had gone back to piloting the ship as if nothing happened.

And it didn't matter when Jivak broke off from the pack with another handful of skiffs and dove straight down towards Enterprise, swooping below it, Poryk his eyes closed to focus on T'Agad's image, waiting to finally be free of the intense nausea.

But the impact never came.

Instead, the vessel had dipped sharply below Enterprise before coming back up at an angle that momentarily cut off the circulation of blood to Poryk's brain. When he finally chased the spots dancing before his eyes, Jivak had the skiff angled right between the engine and the body of the ship, in the blind spot of both sensors and cannons. Since then, he'd been following the movements of the ship like a shadow. And as the Enterprise bucked, slid, swerved, dropped, and looped to avoid the rebel ships, so was their skiff bucking, sliding, swerving, dropping, and looping and Poryk hanging for dear life as the floor under his feet periodically disappeared, listed right, listed left, and came back, without any warning, head between his knees and wishing for nothing else than a quick death and for the motion to stop.

He'd never felt seasick before. And Vulcan having no sizeable sea, he didn't even have a name for it.

xxx

 _ **Sickbay**_

"Where do you think you're going?!"

"You said I would be released today. I need a uniform." T'Pol didn't grace Phlox with further explanation. The doctor could see she was up and infer she was leaving. Trip needed her.

"Today as in twelve hours from now! You're hardly standing on your feet! And I still have to check that the infection is cleared."

T'Pol turned to face Phlox. "You can do so in twelve hours, as planned. Enterprise is under attack. I need a uniform." And Trip needed her.

Phlox just glared at her in response.

"If I do not have a uniform, in light of my medically compromised state, I will be more susceptible to ambient viruses." Trip needed her.

Phlox studied her closely, and suddenly seemed to make up his mind. "Oh all right! Don't use your logic on me!" He went to the chute, came back with a wrapped parcel. "I had the quartermaster prepare one of your unisuits already. No point having you suffer fron thermal shock." There may have been sarcasm in there, but she didn't pick it up.

Phlox turned to her with a hypo. "Here, this will give you a boost. Trust me, you need it. And I want to see you back here in six hours! Or else I am forcibly re-admitting you."

"Six hours, Doctor." T'Pol presented an elegant neck to Phlox's ministrations. Then she was off.

Her first thought on stepping into the corridor was that Phlox was right, she was not fit for duty. Fortunately, the contents of the hypo kicked in at about the same time and she started trotting down the corridors towards Engineering.

xxx

 _ **Engineering**_

"You've got to keep them off, Captain!" Trip was short of breath, pleading needlessly into the intercom.

The doors opened and he nodded at the new arrival, did a double-take and looked again. He'd seen right. It was T'Pol. The terrible noises reverberating in the engine room as the ship tried to evade the barrage of diving ships could have been the songs of angels.

"I need you." He realized he'd cut himself off, started again. "I need you to keep an eye on the inflow calibration panel. Then maybe I can yield more power." It would beat the back and forth shuttle from the upper engine bridge. Not enough personnel, a few dead crew members and the others busy putting out fires.

He was sweating, clear rivulets making their way down his face, taking down some of the ambient soot with them. Everyone in Engineering looked like a blackened ghost, all uniforms the same shade of grit. T'Pol could feel the soot depositing all over her, as if she had walked in a cloud of dust. The stench of burning chemicals was overpowering. She almost stumbled, regained her composure, went to position herself by the inflow panel, ready to call the readings out to him at regular intervals.

The ship shook again, then another more pronounced jolt sent her reeling against the panel. The shock dazed her. She managed not to fall, bracing herself against the nearest steel column with one hand. She couldn't lose sight of the calibration. "Seventy-three percent!"

"Seventy-three percent?! Let me know when we're at sixty-six percent!" Trip's voice rose behind her, then over the intercom. "Captain! We're losing power! We need to get out of here!"

xxx

 ** _Bridge_**

Archer's heart skipped a beat. Trip's voice had more anxiety than he'd ever want to hear.

A hard shock sent him halfway off his chair. "Travis! Do what you can!" He knew the helmsman was doing everything he could. They were coming at them from all angles. "Reed! How many left?" He half-turned towards Reed, holding on to the chair as Travis sent the Enterprise into yet another barely controlled buck and spin, throwing the ship on yet another escape route. At most, it would give them a couple of minutes respite before the skiffs caught up.

"There's too many of them!" The chief of security shouted back, ashen with tension. They'd shot over fifty, and there were still more.

"Captain!" Hoshi's call cut through the din and the smoke. "I'm getting something!"

Archer looked up. "Getting what?! Travis, how about a loop-de-loop?" It had worked once, it may work again. At least allow them to hit a few more targets before they were right back where they started from.

Travis shook his head. "They're too nimble, Captain. We can't hide what we're doing. They'll intercept us halfway." He didn't need to finish. That's when Enterprise would be at its most vulnerable...

Hoshi put a hand out to shush both of them. She was hunched over her headphones as if they were the most precious thing in the universe. "I can't... There's too much static." She looked up at Archer, incredulous, "It sounds like letters and numbers..."

"Coordinates?" Travis supplied, holding on to his console as Enterprise shook again.

"Shields at 23%." Reed commented. "They're coming back."

"Engineering -" Archer started, stopped himself. Trip had enough trouble already. "Travis, try to keep them off as long as you can."

"Not coordinates," Hoshi was still listening. "Numbers... delzert234..." She listened again. "...alphomaJntk199..." she looked up in frustration. "The communication shorted out."

Archer looked interrogatively at Seagull. If there was a time when a science officer should be useful, that was now. But Seagull was not looking up from his viewer. "They're back!" he announced.

"Travis, keep the ship facing them! Protect Trip!" They couldn't let one of those ships hit anywhere close to Engineering. Any abrupt shake there could screw things up for Trip. And for all of them.

The cannons picked up another couple of the smaller ships. All of a sudden Travis looked up. "Ship numbers! Theyre registry numbers!" He quicly went back to keeping Enterprise facing the swarm. The ship shuddered again as another attack vessel evaded the defensive barrage.

"Shields at 16%." Travis wished Reed would shut up. Like this was helping.

"Ship numbers" Archer repeated to himself. Of course, it was logical, Vulcan rebels would register their ships, who else. The next second found him almost out of his seat. "Seagull, find out which of these ships they are! Reed, get ready to blast them to outer space!"

They were already in outer space, but Reed decided not to mention it. "Gladly, Captain!" As if he wasn't already blasting everything he could.

xxx

 _ **Engineering**_

"Hesse, how are we doing with Tube 7?" That was an emergency bypass, not meant for protracted use. Spit and bandaids. That's how he was holding everything together.

"It's stressed but it's handling the flow!"

"Any more capacity?"

"Not unless you want it to split in two!"

"Repairs on 5?"

"With what army?!"

Count on Hesse to get to the point quickly. Trip looked around, chasing the sweat from his eyes with the back of one hand. Everyone in Engineering was manning a console, all covered with a thin sheet of soot. He couldn't even tell which one was T'Pol. But he knew where she was through the bond. "Eighty-five percent!" she announced, as if she'd heard his thoughts. Well, perhaps she had.

The ship shook again, a closer hit this time, and they all looked up and around, checking that the hull held. A rupture of the reactor envelope would be catastrophic, Enterprise stripped of its engines, and with them life support.

"Come on, Travis," Trip muttered, "just keep the ship facing them."

xxx

 ** _Bridge_**

"Got one." Reed clinically announced as there was an explosion in the back of the swarm of attackers. "Travis, I can't lock onto the other if you keep moving!"

Enterprise was moving as swiftly as Travis could direct it, trying to shake the skiffs. He sent the ship down in a diagonal, cutting away from the string of pursuers. Behind him, Enterprise's cannons were finding their mark, the closest attackers being methodically blown into puffs. Travis turned the ship around, its nacelle facing the smaller vessels, protecting Engineering. So long as they didn't lose power, they had a shot. "Engineering -" he started to explain.

"- We can't let them hit Engineering again." Archer interrupted. "Reed, do the best you can."

Another explosion shook the ship. "Shields still at 23%," Reed intoned. Trip had boosted the power when they got away from the attackers for a couple of minutes. "There's the other one..." Reed said to no one in particular. "Got it!" The ships were so close together that the explosion spread to three vessels at once. He leaned back with an expression of satisfaction.

"Im getting more coordinates!" Hoshi shouted out over the bridge. She went back to hunching over her station, listening intently to the next string of letters and numbers, calling them out as she picked them out from the ambient static.

"I can't find them!" Seagull announced. A consterned silence fell on the bridge. Seagull was bent over his viewer, scanning all the numbers of the remaining hundred or so fleet vessels.

Travis was the one who broke the silence. "Perhaps we already got them..."

Everyone looked up at the same time. Waiting. But the constant onslaught seemed to have stopped.

"Whats going on?" Travis asked.

Archer was looking at the ceiling, waiting, listening. "They lost their command!" He suddenly said. "The ships we hit. They were the command center."

"But they planned this ahead of time, they should still be trying to hit us." Reed was listening as well.

Archer shot him a look. "Count your blessings." He went on to listening. "They've lost half the attackers. If the command is no longer there, some of those guys may not feel so interested in being part of the suicide squad. Vulcans are logical, remember." He kept on looking at the ceiling. "Probably figuring out the odds have turned against them."

"They're leaving!" Travis called out excitedly. On the main screen, they could see the small ships recede in the distance, farther and farther away, back to Romulan space.

"What's the matter, Reed, you don't seem happy?" Archer called out to the security chief.

Reed was scowling. "The next generation of rebel commanders is in those ships," he finally said.

Archer nodded in understanding. "It will take a while before they can regroup or get new members. Agreed it would have been better to take all of them out, but we don't control all the variables. The next generation may be the one seeking out peace."

Reed shot a look at Hoshi. She knew he found Archer's constant optimism to be grating.

xxx

 ** _Vulcan_**

"Sphelt." T'Pau greeted the man on her doorstep. It was late, well past official hours. For her minister of security to be there in person meant the news could not wait.

She unconsciously squared herself in the doorway, preventing Sphelt from coming in, and more importantly preventing him from looking past her into her inner chambers. Even if Soval had already retreated to the eating room the moment the door chimed, from where he could not be seen. An unbounded male and unbounded female in close quarters would lead to only one conclusion, one she was not keen on anyone making.

"The Enterprise starship has recovered T'Pol and the Starfleet commander." Sphelt inclined his head as a signal the message was complete.

T'Pau looked at him closely. The message could have waited until the morning. It was not of prime importance. Sphelt had come to her rooms in the middle of the night at the time Soval was there. He was letting her know he knew. If he knew, it meant her chief of security had her under surveillance.

"Borde Mara jus received the information." Sphelt added.

T'Pau nodded. He would have everyone under surveillance. She could try and set him aside, but the other Council members would strenuously object because Sphelt was the one who had uncovered the Romulan listening device.

And Sphelt was an ally. He may be a dangerous ally but someone less threatening would also more likely be less capable. The two of them together could bring Vulcan to the vision Surak had described. She had been Arev's ears and eyes among the Syrannites. Now Sphelt would be her ears and eyes.

She nodded at Sphelt. "Do thy bidding as you see fit." She would accept his counsel.

She watched as he crossed the courtyard, then bid the street door open and close on him.

She turned back towards her inner chambers and other thoughts. Soval might spend the night. Or he might not. If she stepped out of her robes, an unbounded male Vulcan would have very little say in the matter. Very little.


	52. The Forest 52 - The Heroes

xxx

 _ **Rebel lead ship**_

Finally, finally, the ship stopped lurching. Poryk waited a few seconds and raised his head, his eyes rimmed with green. He retched again, but there was nothing to regurgitate. They had come out of another horrendous dive and turn, Jivak speaking words into the mike that didn't make sense. Spivak was slumped in his seat, nerve-pinched again.

Jivak turned slightly around, looking amused. Poryk didn't see what was amusing about it. He simply wished to know that this was the end, there would be no more torture of his vestibular system. His head was buzzing. He thought his nose would start bleeding any minute now. He closed his eyes. That didn't help either. He opened his eyes again and stared mournfully at the screen, where he could see the other ships rushing back to Romulan space. Why did they stop fighting? It did not make sense.

He tensed up when he saw Jivak's fingers fly over the controls again. But this time there was no lurching or sudden dropping. Instead, Jivak slowly took the skiff out of its hiding place, going away from Enterprise.

Which did not make Poryk tense up any less. They would register on the ship's sensors, be in reach of the canons. They were going to be hit by laser fire, the cold vacuum of space enshrining what was left of them.

None of it made sense. Unless Jivak was readying the skiff for a final attack?

xxx

 _ **Enterprise**_

"Attack vessel on the left!" Sankrat shouted, eyes riveted on his console.

"Got it!" Reed answered, focusing his canons. The ship had suddenly appeared on the sensors, out of who-knows-where. He swiftly aligned it in the cross-hairs, ready to vaporize the assailant.

But the ship was moving away from Enterprise. The bridge crew stared nonplussed. Finally the small skiff turned around, and stopped.

"It's waiting!" Hoshi exclaimed at the same time. Reed straightened up from his console, relieved. He now knew what it was. Archer looked at him and he nodded back in agreement.

"Hoshi, hailing frequency." Archer said, then looked over at Reed. "It's them. Get to the transporter room, I'll follow you as soon as we confirm who they are."

Them? who was 'them'? Travis was busy keeping an eye on the rebel ships fleeing to Romulan space, he wanted to turn around and ask but he wasn't going to let his eyes off where the ship was.

"Sankrat, take over," Reed told his junior. There wasn't much risk there, the skiff was friendly.

xxx

 _ **Engineering**_

Trip looked up, the shaking had stopped. Nothing had blown up in Engineering in a few minutes now. The battle was over. He reached for the intercom. "Engineering to Bridge, Trip here. Captain, I have to power down for a while, or everything in the engine room's gonna melt."

"Do what you have to do, but do it fast," Archer sounded none too pleased.

Trip shrugged it off. Jon would be even less pleased if they had a plasma coil meltdown in the middle of nowhere, and close to Romulan space.

Hesse was already working on Tube 5 with a ragtag group she had picked up. Trip checked that T'Pol was not one of them. Coolant tube work was not for the uninitiated.

"Do you still need readings?" He looked down to see T'Pol's elfin face looking up at him.

He smiled in spite of his exhaustion. "No, it looks like we won't be moving for a while." If nobody called on his engines, they'd have a chance to cool off. He watched the cyclonic mix inverter output, the curve was flattening. They would be able to reduce the flow, stabilize the mix, let the machines come off the close-to-melting stage, then they could start the injection process again

Hesse's team was finishing patching up Tube 5. It would be crazy to put it back in operation. But tube 7 was ready to burst with the pressure. That made it susceptible to rupture in case of shock.

"Hesse?!" He called

She knew right away what he was thinking. The woman should be chief engineer on some other lucky ship, not babysitting people like Pantella or playing second fiddle to his truly. "The patch should hold. It'll stick better with time, though." He nodded his agreement. They had a little bit of time.

xxx

 _ **Rebel lead ship**_

As they drew away from Enterprise in a wide curve, Poryk though he saw a movement from the corner of his eye, but their ship was already sailing past the saucer and he lost it. Soon an empty starfield stretched in front of them. Jivak stopped and turned, hanging at a distance from the huge starship.

That's when Poryk saw it again, against the backdrop of Enterprise, in pretty much the same position their own skiff had been in, safely ensconced in a blind spot between sensors and canons. Another attack vessel like theirs.

"Who is in the other attack ship?" he asked, out of curiosity. Jivak must already know about their presence. He wouldn't be able to subdue Jivak and prevent an attack but he would like to know about the plans before he died.

"Which attack ship?" Jivak's looked back at Poryk, an eyebrow raised in surprise.

"There." Poryk pointed it out.

That was the moment when the other skiff decided to move, pushing away from Enterprise in another wide ark, but keeping below the plane of the starship.

Jivak's eyebrows met each other in a scowl. "I do not know. Do you see their registry number?" If he knew who was inside, he could figure out what they were planning to do.

"The number is not visible."

Jivak sat back in his seat. There was no option but to wait, Enterprise would interpret any movement as hostile.

They watched, waiting, Poryk wondering even more what was going on.

xxx

 _ **Enterprise**_

Archer got up from his chair, looking at the screen. "Hoshi, open a line-"

"- There's another ship!" Sankrat called out.

Archer frowned, wondering if the midshipman meant the ship they were already seeing. He looked over at the aft sensor screen, then froze. Another attack vessel had just appeared, opposite from the first one. Were the two ships planning for a pincher attack?

Archer looked towards Reed but his chief of security had already left. He walked back to his chair, slapped the intercom. "Captain to Lieutenant Reed!"

"Sir!" Reed sounded like he had been walking fast.

"How many ships did the Vulcans say to expect?"

"Sir?"

"That's what I thought. There's another one. Get back to the bridge on the double!"

Archer went back in his chair, staring at the two skiffs. The first one was still hanging there while the second one seemed to be moving away from Enterprise. What was going on?

xxx

 _ **Rebel lead ship**_

The com beeped, announcing someone was trying to make contact. Jivak glanced back at Poryk and leaned to open the frequency.

"It's turning!" Poryk exclaimed. Jivak stopped his motion, looked up just in time to see the other vessel loop around, then gain speed, aiming for Enterprise, following a parabolic curve that would keep it out of range of the canons.

It all fell into place. The ship was going to ram Enterprise, its trajectory obviously aiming for the spot where another ship had left a sizable gouge mark. The shields there would be compromised. A second shock so close to the first might rupture the hull, possibly spread damage deep into the starship.

There was no time.

"Hang on!" Jivak shouted, launching their skiff in a corkscrew high up above Enterprise. If he aimed right, they might take out the ship right at the point of impact, possibly minimize the damage. Possibly.

xxx

 _ **Enterprise**_

"Captain!" Hoshi shouted. The first vessel had disappeared from the screen.

"The second ship is moving!" Sankrat shouted at the first time.

"On the main screen! Where's the first ship?!"

"I can't find it -"

"Travis, evasive action!"

"First ship's above us!" Sankrat shouted.

"Travis, get us out of here!" Archer was watching his worst nightmare unfold frame by frame as they watched the second vessel looped around, saw it gaining speed, too close for Enterprise to turn around or get out of the way. "Travis!" He called again, his voice cracking with the strain. The ship wasn't moving fast enough.

Travis didn't respond, his face crunched up with the effort to gain speed. Archer blindly reached for his chaircom. "Engineering, we need power!"

"Captain! I can't give you -"

"There are two ships! They're going to hit!" He release the com, watching the second vessel approach on the main screen. "Reed! weapons!"

"We can't-" Sankrat didn't have time to finish. Reed was running to his console from the turbolift. But the canons couldn't help, both ships were in locations they couldn't reach. Reed slapped the screen in annoyance, shaking his head.

Finally the stars started moving, Enterprise gliding into space just ahead of the vessel. It adjusted its trajectory in pursuit. "Where's the first ship?!" Archer asked again, not losing sight of the twin threat.

"They're going to ram them!" Travis called out, his pilot instincts letting him know where the ships would intercept.

Archer suddenly understood. "Transporter room, ready to transport on my signal! Hoshi, hail them again!"

xxx

 _ **Engineering**_

Trip slammed shut the intercom and started hollering from the top walkway. "Incoming hit! Brace yourselves!"

He swore under his breath as he opened the flow valves, raised the internal pressure, every gesture the exact opposite of what he'd hoped to do. Forget trying to let the machines cool down, the system stabilize. That would be for another time, some ideal time in the future where the guys in Engineering could actually do things their way.

He caught T'Pol looking at him. There was nothing they could do, just hang on and hope that whatever was coming would not hit, that it would neatly be picked by Reed's canons or perhaps even miss Enterprise and overshoot by a wide margin. Though he didn't see how anyone could miss Enterprise.

Enterprise was picking speed, he watched the output pass a quarter impulse, the system groaning as he pressed on to half impulse. He really didn't want to push to full impulse, not with the current distribution flow. He looked over at Hesse again, but she shook her head. Not enough time.

Trip looked behind him. The other ship had hit right outside Engineering, the dent visible from the inside. He swallowed hard. So long as the hull held. The engine room was deep on D-deck, somewhat protected. He hoped.

The hell with it. He clenched his jaw and pushed to full impulse. He could almost hear the pain in the plasma accelerator as it was once again called to perform with an insufficient coolant flow. If there was a meltdown, he'd know it was his fault. Guilt was a human emotion.

xxx

 _ **Rebel lead ship**_

The skiff was ignominiously creaking with the strain, its engines at the limit of power output. They were upside down, Enterprise below them. Jivak was straining to keep the skiff aligned with the starship while Poryk fought renewed nausea, counting the seconds to impact. That's when Jivak aimed the ship straight down and floored it.

And Poryk thought for certain his insides had stayed glued to the apex of their trajectory, that what was hurling towards the other vessel and sudden death was just a carnal envelope. He wished his katra could have been saved. T'Agad perhaps. Now nobody would be able to tell her.

Was Jivak praying? It wasn't Jivak, it was coming over the vessel. A voice, not Vulcan, talking in Vulcan. The accent was thick, Terran, but the Vulcan understandable. "And Surak said take the cudgel off your lirpa and let it be the stone of a well...' ( _Surak tar-tor nem'_ _mesuvulau_ _lirpa fek vik'kel-nen-kov_...)

"... that your children may learn to drink other than blood." ( _kanu kah'ru vath_ _khaf_ _mon-tor_.) Jivak was completing the well-known art'asu.

An wave of emotion submerged Poryk. T'Agad had seen Surak on the edge of her death, and now he in turn was meeting Surak. He rued the fate that would not let him tell her.

On the screen, the other attack vessel was growing larger as they pounced on it from above, raptor-style. Jivak had learned a few things from the Romulans. They could see the saucer on their left, the vessel aiming for the gouge mark by the shuttle bay doors. They rammed it just as it was about to hit Enterprise, but too late to prevent contact. Poryk found himself wishing the hull was thick enough, or he would have died in vain.

The ships fused in an explosive ball. The shriek of the conflagration ruptured his eardrums, the intense light blinded him. A wave of white hot energy washed over him, transporting him along. So that was what the end felt like.

xxx

 _ **Enterprise**_

Hoshi's eyebrows hit her hairline. Was that Archer talking in Vulcan? She kept forgetting that carrying Surak's katra had left its marks on the Captain. She hardly noticed the response coming over the com. Nothing surprised her anymore.

Behind her, Archer was leaning into the intercom, yelling "Transporter room, now!"

Hoshi wondered if he thought he could transport the ships out.

There was no need. She and the bridge crew watched with relief as the second skiff nailed the first just as it was about to hit Enteprise.

Relief turned to consternation as the ships fused into a mass of melted fire that careened against Enterprise, right where the gouge mark had been. The ship shook, then dipped. The lights went out. Everything went quiet. Everyone looked up, waiting for the flickering of the emergency lights.

"Breach on Engineering deck." the computer announced emotionlessly.

xxx

 _ **Engineering**_

The hit came in two times, which took him by surprise. Perhaps that was why things happened the way they did.

First, the close proximity alarm blared, something was too close to the shuttle bay doors. A tremor shook the ship, lightning flashed across the engine room, leaving everyone blinking, momentarily blinded except for the one lucky enough to have inner eyelids. Thinking that must be it, some released their hold, only so slightly. And wished they never had.

The second hit was much worse, right on the heels of the first one, the remains of the ships hitting straight through the shields, into the hull, the shockwave blowing deep inside D-deck, billowing the hallway floors like windblown fabric, the gust of air grabbing everyone in its way, lifting them high up against the ceiling, rolling them along until they crashed against the doors to Engineering, blowing through them like cardboard, sending bodies and debris flying across the engine room, sweeping everything and everyone that wasn't attached and flattening them against the plasma accelerator, against the consoles, against the high wall in the back. The ship shook like an inverted salt shaker.

The ball of melted ship metal hung for a couple of seconds then peeled off the hull, leaving a hole behind, a small enough crack, but for the vacuum of space calling everything to it, greedily sucking anything in proximity, the agonized screams of bodies shoved and smashed and broken through the narrow fissure, the ship emergency system unable to call power from the engines and contain the breach.

The second shockwave had sent Trip against the top railing, folding him over like a ragdoll, chasing the air out of his lungs, then dropped him, twisting with pain, on the lattice work of the walkway. At least he had been one of the ones holding on. He screamed from broken ribs as he arched his back, joining the screams of the wounded. He tried to get back to his feet, if not his feet, his knees, finally managing to grab a piece of the console and get himself off the floor.

The vision in the engine room was straight from his personal nightmares, the engine room a mass of black smoke, bodies strewn all around. He wanted to find T'Pol. But he had a duty to the ship, to the other crew. A vigorous wind was sucking the air out the engine room along with the black smoke. The plasma accelerator was shrieking for lack of coolant. Trip held on to the railing with one hand, he didn't need to check, he knew just from the sound that Tube 7 had collapsed.

"You need to get out! It's approaching melt down! We have to evacuate!" Hesse was yelling up at him, bleeding from a head-wound, holding her arm. Leave, and then what? Let the meltdown happen? He shook his head at her, working over the console. He looked up briefly at Tube 5. Either it would hold, or it would not. The safe approach would be to lower the engine output to match the remaining coolant flow, let everything cool down gradually, possibly avoid critical mass. Where was T'Pol? She would argue for the safe approach. It might be too late for that.

"Trip! We're losing air!" There was almost no oxygen left in the engine room, he could feel his lungs starting to labor, his head was spinning from the smoke inhalation. Was the safe approach the logical choice? Was it? The good of the one and the many, who was the one, who were the many? If the patch didn't hold, he'd be dead. They'd all be dead. Not the right outcome. If Tube 5 held, the crew would live on. As for him - he needed to get out now if he wanted to survive. Evacuate and risk death alone in a pod, or risk death now and perhaps save the crew. Aye, there's the rub.

He kept on aligning toggles, the switch couldn't be gradual. He could hardly breathe anymore, the wind trying to float him to the breached hull on D-deck. Where was T'Pol? He didn't want to leave her behind. Darkness was encroaching. He fought it, fought for one more breath. Here goes nothing! His fingers found the toggle, and he flipped it. Tube 5. Hold, son of a bitch! Hold! Then the crew has a chance. The crew and the ship. Too late for the engineer, perhaps. But T'Pol would live on.

Everything was going dark. A giant hand grabbed him, he was spiraling upward in a reverse tornado. All of Engineering was being sucked out along with him. He readied himself for the cold hand of death. There was a grip on his ankle. He looked down and saw T'Pol's face looking up at him. A wave of relief washed over him. They would die together. He wasn't leaving her behind. Blackness fell. So that's what the end felt like.

* * *

 _ **TO BE CONTINUED...**_


	53. The Forest 53 - The Dark

Xxx

 ** _T'Pol_**

The blinding light that flashed through Engineering may have disoriented Human senses but her inner eyelids protected her eyes and she did not let go of the ladder to the walkway. Trip had said he no longer needed readings but had not given her another station to man, so she had remained where she was. The first hit was not powerful enough in light of the estimated weight of the attack vessel and the conflagration must have taken place outside of the ship. She held firm, calculating the combined mass and velocity of the vessels to estimate if and when contact would take place.

She was no further than the first argument of the mathematical equation when the shockwave blew through Engineering, flattening her against the accelerator casing, taking her breath away, before slamming her against the floor, pain shooting through her leg as he knee smashed against the steel floorplates. Vulcan strength meant she didnt let go of the ladder until the whiplash left her on the floor, semi-conscious. Her scientific mind urged her to move, all too aware that the heavier coolant vapor would settle in the first ten inches above the floor, where she was. Her instincts urged her to move, the coolant vapors burning their fiery trace down her throat and into her lungs. But she couldnt move, the right half of her body numb from the shock, the smoke thick enough to cut in slabs, even if the air was rapidly being siphoned out of D-Deck through the cracked hull.

She went into a fit of coughing, trying to refrain from breathing while fighting to get upright. Someone came from behind, she couldn't see who, and hoisted her to her feet, dragging and helping her limp the rest of the way to the relative safety of the corridor. She doubled over, retching from the chemical toxins, unable to speak other than in a hoarse whisper. Hesse stumbled out behind her, bleeding from a head wound and holding her arm close to her chest.

"Meltdown! We have to evacuate!" Hesse's voice was hoarse from coolant poisoning and hollering to get everyone out.

The words slowly crossed T'Pol's conscious mind. "Trip?" she croaked.

Hesse shook her head. "He won't leave. Still trying... won't make it."

Feeling was returning to T'Pol's right half, however excruciating. She turned to the gaping maw of the engine room, stripped of its doors.

"Oh no you don't!" Hesse wasn't going to let both commanders kill themselves needlessly. She interposed herself, "You can't go in there! It's going to blow! We need to evacuate the ship!" hoping the call to a bigger duty would prevail. T'Pol paid her no heed and Hesse grabbed her with her good arm. "You can't!" And learned why it was not a good idea to try and physically restrain a Vulcan, even one that was wounded.

T'Pol half-ran, half-hobbled to the ladder, looking up into the clearing smoke. She could hardly make the top walkway and the prone figure hanging on to the monitoring console for dear life.

She thought Trip saw her when she reached the top. She grabbed his leg just as he fell over and pulled, managing to hoist him off the walkway and against her, somehow keeping a hold on him as she slip-fell down the ladder, the two of them landing hard. Others came as she started dragging him towards the corridor, no man left behind.

xxx

 _ **Enterprise**_

Space, the final frontier...

Trillions upon trillions of star-studded vacuum. Somewhere in there a ship is listing. There are no lights inside.

Inside the ship, people are craning their necks at the ceiling, anxiously waiting.

Inside the ship, there is an engine room, dark and noiseless...

Inside the engine room, there are bodies lying all around.

A soft noise rises, like a heartbeat. Constant and steady. The steady woosh of coolant flowing. Through Tube 5.

The plasma accelerator stops its grinding noise. Energy flows through the vessel...

Emergency systems spring into place, lights come back, oxygen levels are restored, the breach is contained...

Emergency crews are running down hallways with stretchers and equipment.

The ship stops listing, another beacon of light in the immensity of space.

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

Cold, dark space. One second is a lifetime, ten seconds an eternity. He was floating in space, floating in some alternate dimension, looking in wonder all around. The universe was not filled with stars but with meditating figures, cross-legged statues wrapped in blankets, their elongated heads spewing streams of consciousness like so many bubbles. Bubbles that spread across space to other places, other worlds, other people, people like him.

So many of them. These meditating figures. They were supporting the entire universe, a web of silent guardians infusing all with a chant of love and forgiveness. He was going to join them, chant in turn. As soon as he found T'Pol. He looked around but she was nowhere to be seen.

He was sorry. For leaving her behind. For all the stupid Human things he'd done, for all the times he'd been wrong. For all the times she'd been too Vulcan. A lifetime of misunderstandings.

He loved her with all his heart, his soul, his flesh, the shadows of his past, the memories of his future. Every cell of his being was a witness to his love for her. I love you. Was there any better way to say it in all the galaxy? You are dear to me. Three words, four words, three hundred words, it was all the same. He loved her.

And because he loved her he could be a supplicant on his knees asking for forgiveness. Please forgive me. He would gladly take all the faults, all the unsaid, everything that ever had gone wrong between them. Just for her.

And he wanted to thank her. From the bottom of his heart. For having opened new vistas for his heart, for his mind. For having made him a better man, for having loved him. For being alive. For being her. Thank you.

Now he could turn back to the immensity of space, the darkness where sounds did not reach.

xxx

 _ **Poryk**_

Poryk opened his eyes and closed them again. He couldn't be opening his eyes if he were dead. Something was not right. He would try again, confirm that he could not open his eyes, as expected.

He opened his eyes again. How did he open his eyes if he were dead? Everything was translucent, hidden behind an opaque veil. He had no idea where he was, his ears were stuffed with cotton. Something pricked his neck and he tried to chase it, wondering how he could feel something prick his neck if he were dead. The weight in his lungs cleared somewhat.

Suddenly his inner eyelids snapped open. His eyes widened as he took in the scene around him, his mind refusing to accept what it was seeing. He was on his knees, down on some hard surface doted with different lit circles. Jivak was there too, slowly getting back to his feet, and so was Spivak, unconscious.

Poryk found that he was getting to his feet, too, helped by a couple of aliens. He turned to them but he couldn't hear what they were saying, the rush in his ears drowning out all sound. There was a strange alien talking to him, looking at him straight in the face. Poryk shook his head, he had no idea what was being said.

The mental block lifted somewhat and he recognized the uniforms from the Enterprise. Jivak was looking at him, talking, and Poryk shook his head once. The weird looking alien doctor came at him with a hypo and Poryk let him, still shell-shocked at being alive.

An intense pain in his ears made him raise a hand to protect the delicate shell, and all of a sudden he could hear, even though there still was a rushing sound in his ears. He was hearing well enough that he turned around when he heard the sounds of footsteps.

Captain Archer and Lieutenant Reed had just arrived, both looking somber. Archer walked to Jivak.

"Welcome aboard, Commander Serach."

Poryk's eyes widened even further. The V'Shar agent's name wasn't Jivak?

'Sub-Commander Serach," Jivak corrected. "Permission to come aboard."

"We welcome the representative of Vulcan V'Shar services," Archer responded. "And you were promoted in absentia, Commander."

xxx

 _ **Trip**_

Trip looked at the Vulcan doctor, feeling T'Pol on the chair next to him. The physician had just taken them through an extensive description of what would happen, replete with four-syllable words and whole kind of scientific mumbo-jumbo that made T'Pol's day. The only part that he had paid full attention to was the description of the equipment that would be used for the recombination, the technical side of things. And of course, the end result.

He knew that whatever happened he must keep an open mind. Vulcans were painfully blunt but not ill-intentioned. At least he chose to believe they were not. He noted with amusement that the clock on the doctor's desk was the same as on Phlox's desk.

The Vulcan looked over their files on his padd, looked up. "So I understand you are ready for this?" He was staring at both of them.

"It is our choice," T'Pol inclined her head.

"Science supports the feasibility of creating a viable embryo during pon farr" The doctor looked fixedly at them, in the Vulcan manner. Trip was glad for the physician's fortrightness. This was such an intensely personal topic for Vulcans that if the doctor had shown any hint of embarrassment he could see himself running after T'Pol, begging her to reconsider and come back.

He was the one who'd told her unequivocally he wanted a child with her, shamelessly used his prerogative as her bondmate to force the issue all the way to where they were now, a doctor's office on Vulcan. Unlike any doctor's office he'd ever been in, rough-hewn rock giving the office the appearance and feel of a grotto. Based on the soothed vibes he was getting from she-who-is-his-wife, the setting felt comfortable and safe to her. His experience with ob-gyns was extremely limited and he was lacking a point of comparison, but if T'Pol was pleased, so was he.

"We will take you through a tour of the _guvik_ facility," the physician was going on, "help you familiarize yourself with where the procedure will take place. We have twenty-four hour feedback on all physiological processes, and will know exactly when to intervene." He looked over at Trip, seeming to weigh something in his mind. "We usually sedate both partners. I trust you will want the same?"

Woah. Woah! Trip had a feeling the conversation was getting away from him. Fast.

"Huh," he interrupted the doctor, then taking a page from Vulcan manners, stared at him straight in the eye. Boy, that was not an easy thing to do. He had a suspicion he was blushing. "Uh, excuse me, but what do you mean sedated?" What he really wanted to scream was 'What do you mean the 'sex facility'?' He wasn't supposed to be there the whole time, with machines whirring and picking up everything that happened, was he? Perhaps Vulcans didn't suffer from performance anxiety, but he wasn't sure about him.

The physician raised an eyebrow at T'Pol, who looked exactly as flustered, leaving Trip to wonder where he lost the thread. It was T'Pol who finally deduced what was bothering her bondmate. "The sex facility?" she prompted.

This time he knew he was blushing. He crossed his arms, getting angry with the entire set-up. "Yeah, well I mean," he could feel the blush spreading downward his neck, "why can't we just stay..." He didn't have the words to express what he thought.

It was the Vulcan physician who bridged the cultural gap. "You were not planning on resolving the pon farr at home?" he asked incredulously.

"Well, I don't know what's so strange about that," Trip snarled. He turned to T'Pol. "We've been handling it fine on Enterprise."

The physician steepled his fingers and leaned forward, obviously quite captivated by the Human specimen in his office, which irritated Trip even more. T'Pol looked down at her feet and Trip had the sudden realization that there was yet another facet of Vulcan sexuality he didn't know about, something more to blow his mind. Because that's what every new discovery did, it seemed.

"You have been 'handling it fine' in a place with electromagnetic locks where all the furniture was welded to the walls or the floor," the healer commented.

Trip reluctantly nodded. That was right, but still...

"And with a female that was not yet sexually mature," the physician went on. Trip looked up in surprise. What did he mean by that? The Vulcan doctor looked at Trip as if he just put two and two together and tapped something on his padd before handing it over to him. "This is an illustration of the life cycles of a Vulcan female. As you can see, the sexual and reproductive cycles are not aligned, contrary to what I understand is the case for Human women. Oestrus starts around the age of eighty, a few cycles after the beginning of ponn farr." He lowered his eyes. "What you have experienced so far are only the beginning ponn farr cycles."

Trip couldn't keep his eyes from widening. 'Only' the beginning ponn farr cycles? So that had been 'pon farr light'? What the heck. He swallowed nervously, unsure he could withstand anything more intense.

The physician was tracking exactly where his thoughts were going. "There will not be any change in terms of sexual... appetites... but you may find that the level of aggression is much higher in an ovulating Vulcan. What we propose to do, an intervention at the height of ovulation, to subtract the egg and proceed with lab-based fertilization, will be experienced as the ultimate hostile act. By both partners." The physician paused. "Drawing intense hostilities in return. From both partners."

Trip relaxed somewhat. That's where he had an edge on Vulcans. For once, he would be the logical one, able to manage the intense feelings provoked by the procedure.

But the healer was still piercing him with an eye that seemed to know his every thought. "You will of course be subject to the pon farr's emotional storm through your bond with T'Pol."

Trip took a reflexive deep breath. Perhaps he had pushed too hard about this baby thing. He leaned forward, his mouth and throat dry. "Can we go over the whole thing again?"

An hour later he was at the facility associated with the clinic. He swallowed as they went through the chambers, each with its own extremely private and protected entrance. Whatever medical equipment there was must be completely integrated into the walls themselves, made of rock, what else. Whatever he had imagined, this was not it. But he refrained from asking about the sand on the floor, simply frowned about how sand got in every place, until the resident doctor, a woman healer this time, made the comment that Vulcan sand was non-adhesive. It was the weirdest experience, akin to visiting a hotel stripped of its beds and furniture except for low-lying cushions that wouldn't hurt a fly if thrown. How were they suppose to - he realized that that had never stopped them before during pon farr, and it wasn't going to stop them again.

Why had he never wondered how Vulcans handled pon farr? Had he imagined that it was all done within the privacy of their homes? Where there were things that could be thrown, like chairs, cutlery, beds, pets, anything that was not attached. Not counting the cost of replacing everything almost every seven years or so. Vulcans were logical. Of course, it made sense to abscond to places where nothing could be thrown, or broken.

T'Pol had briefed him that there were either clan places, usually hard to get to and cumbersome of access, but that most couples availed themselves of private facilities or went to the temples. Clan places were out for him, he wasn't going to be anyplace in the desert while half-out of his mind with her hormones. The temples were way too public. As far as private facilities went, he guessed the clinic's was just as good, though he wasn't sure about the performance anxiety thing. He had finally raised the issue in private with the doctor, which had earned him another eyebrow - he should really start counting those, see if he could establish some kind of personal record - and a cryptic comment that pon farr would see to it.

Yeah, well, that was all fine and good, but he wouldn't be on Enterprise, among his friends, in a familiar environment, and he wasn't so sure about that.

xxx

 _ **Phlox**_

"You're supposed to be in bed," Phlox said as he checked his patient's vital signs. Nothing had changed. He patted the hand he had taken out for readings, tucked it back under the covers, "whether youre here or not, he'll wake up when its time for him to wake up."

He walked back to his other patient. "Come on, bed for you." He gently grabbed her elbow, guiding her to the other biobed as she limped heavily.

"I am fine," she hissed through clenched teeth.

Phlox was appreciative of the effort that took. "You shouldn't speak," he admonished, "coolant damage is nothing to laugh at." He looked up at the readings above her biobed. "Actually, that's not so bad. Not as bad as I would have expected. One more night in Sickbay should do it." And knowing how much she would want to retreat to her lair away from all potential witnesses or attackers, he added the one thing that would overcome all objections and defenses. "And that way you'll be the first to know how he's doing."

T'Pol shot him a glance that let him know he wasn't playing fair. Phlox graced her with his broadest smile, bouncing on the heels of his feet. What was the Human saying, exactly? Ah, yes, something about payback and a cold dish. He had always been puzzled by it. But now he was starting to understand.

She shot a poignant glance towards where Trip lay and Phlox felt bad. His tone became gentle, almost tender. "You saved his life, you know I'll do everything to keep him alive. I'm keeping him in a coma until his lungs heal, but once that's done he should be fine. Everything else will have time to heal by then."


	54. The Forest 54 - MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY

_**PLEASE SKIP THIS CHAPTER IF SEX ACTS ARE NOT YOUR CUP OF TEA. You won't miss anything, the story seamlessly picks up on the next chapter.**_

* * *

 _ **Phlox**_

Phlox couldn't help be pleased as the doors closed on Hesse and another couple of crewmembers. Sickbay was finally starting to empty. The D-deck breach and the coolant tube ruptures had wrecked havoc on the Engineering team, so many dead. He shook his head ruefully, surveying the rest of his patients. At least now everyone had a privacy biobed.

It was time to make his rounds. Trip was still in a coma, though the brainwave monitors showed a fair amount of activity. The engineer had been slowly improving, sliding from the stillness of coma to a state more like deep sleep. He should be waking up in a couple more days. Phlox stared in wonder at the massive erection that was tenting Trip's blanket, wishing he had some way to observe what exactly was going on in the engineer's brain, wondering if T'Pol was in there. His eyes widened slightly as he realized she may not be, there was no telling with the haphazard firing of nerve endings and synapses that would be rocking a Human's dreams.

He quickly shut the privacy curtain, glancing over his shoulder at the door, making sure nobody was coming in. Especially no female of the Vulcan variety who would happen to be bonded to the engineer. The erection should resolve itself within thirty minutes at most, the sleep cycle had already been going on for a while. If T'Pol came in during that time, he would come up with some excuse why she couldn't see her bondmate. Vulcans didn't dream and they were ferociously monogamous, especially the females. If T'Pol sensed through the bond that someone else than her was animating Trip's dreams, there would be no rationalizing about Human males and innocent sexual stimuli. He didn't want the chief engineer torn to pieces just as he was beginning to heal.

xxx

 _ **Trip (in a coma)**_

And to think he'd been worried about performance anxiety. Trip chucked privately at the thought, positioning himself at the entrance to T'Pol's inner core, then thrusting into her. He was surprised he could even have a thought other than copulation. Sex, sex, and more sex. That was all that had been on his mind for the past who-knew-how-many days. He couldn't even imagine a future that would not involve T'Pol meowling in hunger for him, or him plunging deep in her in whatever rhythm and fashion suited her until his release briefly slacked both their needs.

He came with a shudder and a woodsman groan, falling over her in a limp blanket of sweat, his penis still within her, spurting in diminishing spams. She went slack under him, spent and satisfied for a little while. The two of them fell into an exhausted asleep still nestled into each other.

The tightening at the base of his ball sack brought Trip back up to consciousness. He would have groaned but his mind was a confused mass of swirling thoughts with the single blinding imperative to mate. An erection rose in response, even harder than the last one. With a groan he turned T'Pol around and lifted her on her hands and knees before plunging deep in her, demanding full access. She arched her back and hissed in response and they engaged in another wild round of sex.

Trip felt the surge of a coming orgasm. He didnt want to let it come, he wanted more of this. He started to think of technical engineering drawings but what came up instead were diagrams of shells and rockets, missiles of various sizes and shapes, all ready to fire or about to explode. Switching to biological charts didn't help, the neural drawings became infused with sound and color, turning into images of v-shaped uteruses, Rorschach inkblots of vaginas. He grasped for something that would be less sexually laden, finally latching onto the dry mechanical process of conception, how the medical teams would intervene, what the physician had described. A part of his brain warned him that he hadn't asked enough questions, that something was missing. He was only too happy to ignore it and to go back to the single thought of copulation.

He rode her with a final spasm and groan and rolled off, both of them glistening with his sweat. T'Pol rolled right on top of him and started to lick his nipples, trailing kisses down his midriff, clearly heading lower. He knew through the bond what she had in mind. What he couldn't understand was how his body could still be willing. This was a rawdy teenager fantasy - or anxiety. How many times could he screw the most beautiful woman in the universe, in every position, in every manner. And do it again. And again. And again. A spasm of pleasure tightened his balls and his dick reared its head up in anticipation. The answer seemed to be many, many more than his clouded brain could figure.

xxx

 _ **Phlox**_

A quick check showed that there was no change to his patient's condition. Phlox swallowed and went back to his desk, found that he could not relax. The REM episode had ended, but not the erection, and now Trip was entering another REM phase, his erection a not so mute testimony to what was going on in his mind. The engineer must be having the wet dream of the century.

And he wouldn't remember any of it when he came out of his coma. Phlox felt sorry for the loss to medical science. This would have been a wonderful opportunity for his study of Human sexuality.

His eyes went back to the clock on his desk. T'Pol would soon be off-duty, would come by to check on Trip. Could he take the chance of having her experience what was going on in her bondmate's mind? If she were not involved, the results could be devastating to both of them. If she were involved, it could trigger an episode of shadow pon farr. Vulcan scientific journals had examples of that occurring, a rare possibility but still a possibility. And then no matter how Trip performed in his dreams, reality was that he would not have the stamina required after spending days in a bed in Sickbay. With potential dire results for T'Pol.

It was becoming a matter of medical necessity. He hadn't been keen on using the option, but he had no choice. He pushed off his desk in search of the hypo.

Xxx

 ** _Trip (in a coma)_**

There was the sound of the hidden door latch opening and Trip reached for the hypo in its nook. Part of him was yelling obscenities, screaming that he should not interrupt the act, claiming for the pleasure that was soon to be stolen. She was perfectly positioned, her neck exposed as she kept licking lower and lower. A spasm of regret went through him as he activated the hypo. She didn't even feel it and slumped where she was, covering his loins. Which he was not sorry about when the medical team came into their chamber. He privately marveled at the fact he didn't feel embarrassed in the least bit, completely naked except for the beauty wrapped around him.

The medics surrounded her and a wave of red hot anger started stirring in him. These people were touching his mate. No male had a right to her body other than him. The tan-bloused doctor turned to him and he recognized Koss. With a roar and a lunge he was on him, ready to tear off his throat with his teeth. Somehow Archer was there too. The Captain saw the attack just before it occurred and bodily grabbed Trip, holding him breathless against the wall. Trip threw him through the doors, then started on Koss again. But Archer plunged and grabbed Trip's feet, making him fall before he could reach the couch. Trip turned, ready to strike. He knew it! The Captain and Koss wanted T'Pol to themselves. He was not surprised to see Malcolm enter the room at a run, a cadre of security guard doctors behind him. He, too. He would kill him. He would kill them all.

He could take all of them, and he rushed with a roar, striking one with each fist and aiming for another with a kick. There was a prick in his shoulder, then nothing.

xXxx

 ** _Phlox_**

Phlox gingerly let out the breath he'd been holding. T'Pol had come by, checked on Trip, there was nothing there for her to feel, the sedative had its effects, the chief engineer's raging hard-on gone under.

He shook his head, he couldnt believe he had sedated a patient on the verge of coming out of a coma. He kept telling himself that the potential disastrous outcomes meant he had no choice.

The sedative must be wearing off, Trip's massive hardon was springing back to life. Phlox looked at his patient with resigned regret. He really would have liked to know what was going on in the engineer's mind.

xxx

 ** _Trip (in a coma)_**

He woke up with a groan, and picked himself up from where he was dry-humping the sand. He looked in wonder at the pebbles, who had given the Vulcans Xyllirian pebbles? Did that mean he would be the one carrying the embryo? He had already done it once, he could do it again. The intrusion of the medical team must have been a dream, Archer and Malcolm were far away on Enterprise.

He sniffed the air in the chamber, found it laden with the smell of others and of chemicals, a scent a little like Sickbay. He started prowling, looking for his mate, and found her fast asleep on the pillows. He had a sudden overriding need to possess her, to reassert his claim on her, make her his. He landed on her with a roar. She roared back as she woke up, already in need for him, tearing his clothes off. He quickly slid into her and began thrusting deep. She moaned her approval, trying to get as much of him in as possible. In response, Trip grabbed her buttocks and lifted her from the couch, impaling her on all his length, going as deep as he could. She was his, and nobody else's. She met his every stroke with her own eager counterstroke and they rode each other to a quick climax.

That was not enough. The thought that someone else had been in the chamber spurred him on. His penis engorged itself anew and he started again, this time controlling the rhythm. It was only after the fifth rough and harsh orgasm that he finally felt he had successfully laid his claim. T'Pol was lying exhausted, eyes half-closed. He should leave her alone, and yet he found himself covering her for a sixth time, spreading her legs apart and sheathing himself to the hilt. He would never have enough of her.

xxx

 ** _Phlox_**

"Archer to Phlox, we're waiting for you, doctor."

"On my way," Phlox hurriedly shut off the connection. Archer wanted to go over the list of casualties, what would happen to the bodies in the morgue, the state of physical readiness of the crew. The Captain had taken the deaths hard. Five crew members. It would have been a lot more without the miracles of medical science. He looked around, his gaze stopping where Trip's bed was hidden by the privacy curtains. The engineer 's blood pressure and heart rate were elevated, his endocrine system was going wild, readings all over the place, and his sexual system... well, that one was obvious enough. If he hadn't been Human, Phlox would have suspected he was going through pon farr.

He hesitated. He could be gone for up to an hour, there was always the chance T'Pol would stop by to check on her mate. The unexpected was how accidents happened. T'Pol was on duty, if she stopped, it would be for a quick check. If she saw Trip sleeping peacefully without any outward sign anything was different, she would simply leave and wait for Phlox to let her know if he'd awakened.

It would be best if things remained hidden. Phlox palmed the neural suppressor in his pocket.

Xxx

 _ **Trip (in a coma)**_

He woke up, unsure of what happened, smelling the scent of strangers again. A low growl arose from his chest. He didn't know he could growl. He went to his mate, but she was still asleep. He could smell the scent of others, they must have come back to implant the fertilized egg. He paced the room, looking for the desecrators. He would ease the blood fever by killing them. But there were none to be seen. He turned back to his female.

Trip brought a hand to his head. What was going on with him. It must be her hormones, messing his brain up. She was moving slightly, awakening from a deep slumber. As she awoke, he could feel the heat of pon farr in her, feel it spreading to him. He knew only one way to placate her and quickly went over to where she lay. He put a hand between her legs, cupping her, teasing her, waiting for her to be fully awake and share his passion.

But something was not right. She was moaning in pain. Pieces of what the physician had said came back to his mind, about protecting the newly developing embryo, that they would need to wait six hours. Why six hours? The number struck him as strange. He started sweating with the effort to remember. But she was clawing at him, looking for release, and he pushed the question away.

Except that release wouldn't come, the need was too great, the wait had been too long. Vulcan physiology required seminal fluid to counter the effect of the pon farr hormones and her body was locked in painful vaginal spasms, forcing him to proceed gently. He cupped her breasts, squeezing them softly, and her body stiffened in response. She exhaled as he stroked her nipples, making her gasp, before bringing his hands to her mound, stroking in soft circles. She shuddered in response, eyes closed, thrusting towards his hand. Trip brought both thumbs to the task, alternating between soft caresses and pronounced rubbing until she was moaning in desire. He enhanced his attentions, tickling and teasing, stroking down her opening with a feather light touch. T'Pol back suddenly arched and she let out a long moan, aggressively thrusting her hips.

But it wasn't time yet. Pon farr was still making her cramp with unmet need. Trip inserted his fingers but did not stroke or rub, just increased the pressure as she began to aggressively thrust her hips, delicately fingering her. His erection had reached the point of almost being painful. He kept using his hands, his fingers, his tongue, until the stimulation reached a crescendo and she climaxed. The respite was temporary, not enough to quell the nerve endings inflamed by the fever, but enough to allow him to guide himself inside her, despite the narrowed opening. The contraction of her swollen vaginal walls quickly brought him to completion and he roared as they climaxed together.

His erection was already back. There was no respite from pon farr. He turned in triumph towards her, presenting himself to her in a silent offering of pleasure and she started reflexively drooling with the promise of release, gladly opening her legs, offering herself. In a rush, he was on her, then inside her, then she was screaming her release but he didn't let go yet, anchored deep within her. He sat back on his heels and raised her upright, that he could pylon into her until she went weak with slacked desire, putty in his hands, and he could cry out his own release.

Then he would start all over again. He wasn't planning to ever be done.

* * *

 _Part of me is so completely embarrassed about this chapter. And part of me is chuckling._ _I did hold back from some yet unexplored and potentially controversial topics, didn't want FF or the readers to get mad at me._

 _Apologies if I offended anyone (hopefully, nobody who would be offended read past the disclaimer at the top)._


	55. The Forest 55 - The Awakening

xxx

 _ **Archer**_

"How's Trip?" Archer asked as T'Pol came to seat at the conference table

"Dr. Phlox says his health is stationary and that he should be awakening soon." She didn't add that the doctor had no idea why he hadn't or how long he would stay in a coma.

Archer nodded, eyeing her critically. There was not much he could do, and T'Pol seemed to be taking it in stride even if she looked restless, as if some part of her was missing but she wasn't sure what. She'd been back on duty for a few days now but still looked pale and thinner. He didn't know how much of it was that she was still recovering and how much the stress of Trip being in a coma.

He'd hesitated about asking her to attend, but after all she'd been personally involved, actually physically involved, and it made sense for her to join the meeting. He motioned for her to sit at the head of the table, between him and Reed on one side, and Jivak and Poryk on the other. Reed had downloaded the information and they were down to brass tacks.

He picked up the data tape from the table, handed it to Jivak on the other side "Here's the list of contacts that T'Pol extracted from Romulan space. It's as much yours as it is the Federation's." Jivak, nodded, taking the tape between long fingers. Archer was impressed that the man didn't even spare a glance at T'Pol. Poryk hadn't been able to refrain from doing so. After all, she was the elephant in the room where that list was concerned.

"Have you shared it with Vulcan?" the V'Shar man asked.

"We've let Ambassador Soval know that the mission was successful. But we haven't sent the information to Vulcan, no."

"And you've sent it to others than Vulcan?" Jivak pressed on.

Archer glanced over at Reed. The man was no fool. "We shared it with services within the Federation. Time was of the essence." Jivak might or might not know about Harris and Section 31, after all the man had spent tens of years on Cathruusa, away from what was happening outside of Romulan space. Though he was in fairly regular contact with V'Shar services, it seemed. He realized there was no telling what he might or might not know.

The tall man nodded, still looking at the tape he was fingering. "And I gather you have copies?" he went on.

"Not many but enough."

"How do I know the information has not been tampered with?"

Archer sighed out loud. He was getting annoyed. They'd rescued the man, if they hadn't he wouldn't be asking these questions, he wouldn't have the information, period. Though he realized T'Pol would know and would have the same questions. "Dr. Phlox holds the original 'bullet'," he glanced over at T'Pol, "in stasis. You are welcome to check that the chip is there and extract the information yourself. I understand you were the one who inserted it, you'll be able to tell if it was tampered with." It still was crazy to him, the way they got the information out of Romulan space. T'Pol looked like she was barely listening to the exchange, but Archer knew that was not the case.

Jivak nodded, as if the explanation was sufficient, "I will check." Archer caught Reed nodding as well and realized the man was simply doing his job. That made it easier. "Feel free to ask Dr. Phlox, I will let him know you have full access."

"And you want me to deliver the information to Vulcan?" Jivak kept methodically going down the logic that would explain why they were all there. He looked up at Archer. The question being, why didn't they send the information to Vulcan themselves. The Human seemed to understand exactly the path his thoughts were taking. "We understand the situation on Vulcan is not fully stabilized, that there may be some resistance to the changes brought about by T'Pau."

Jivak nodded his understanding. If the Federation gave the information directly, they may appear to be trying to influence Vulcan or to be interfering with all Vulcan's sovereignty, especially if they happened to give it to someone who was secretly part of a faction opposed to the new regime. It was far better that the intelligence be provided by a Vulcan. And V'Shar were above any petty considerations of politics. They didn't trust anyone. And would always work for the benefit of all-Vulcan.

"Your confidence honors us." The data disk disappeared somewhere in Jivak's outfit. "I will make sure this is delivered."

The men were getting up from the table when a voice stopped them short. "Remember that state secrets are fleeting at best." Archer looked back in surprise at T'Pol. What did she mean by that?

xxx

 _ **Orion transport**_

Dozem looked at the coordinates in his console. "This is not the way to Vulcan," he finally voiced out what had been troubling him since Ngekkom entered them.

They'd proceeded cautiously after they handed the two aliens over to the Federation starship, tiptoeing in dread of some retaliatory attack by the Romulans, but nothing had happened and they relaxed as they put more and more distance between them and Romulan space. He'd thought they'd now be on a direct course back to get the others.

"We're not going back to Vulcan," Ngekkom roughly answered.

His brother turned around at his post, "But our crew is waiting there..."

"We're not going back to Vulcan," Ngekkom repeated crossly, turning to stare his brother down. "What do you think they'll do to us down there? We've got enough credits for a lifetime waiting for us in the Orion belt, we can live very comfortably. We won't have to stress about successful routes any longer."

"We can't leave our crew behind," Ngegguk replied, obviously troubled by his brother's declaration.

"They'll be fine, Vulcan jails are not so bad," Ngekkom shrugged. He didn't understand why his brother would bother himself with the plight of the crew. Dozem, he understood, the pilot would feel he was part of them. "These people are soft. It's not like they're being held as slaves." If it were on Orion, yes, then he could have a moral dilemma about the fate of his crew. But Vulcan! The jails were a comfortable way of life, if boring.

"But we said we'd be back, we made a deal to get all of us out of jail," Ngegguk insisted.

"Well, it's not happening. The Vulcans thought they'd get the better of the deal, make us get their people in Romulan space, and then what? Crawl back to Orion with our tail between our legs, two years gone and nothing to show for it?! At least, now we can come back as success stories. I'll make sure to give the families of the crew a monthly stipend, ease their situation."

"A monthly stipend? There's not enough in the account for..." Ngegguk's voice trailed as he realized his big brother had been lying, had no intention of compensating the crew's families for his betrayal. He swiveled his chair around to look at him, torn at finding that his hero may not have been worthy of worshipping.

Ngekkom seemed embarrassed at the realization he was reading in his brother's eyes. "Listen, d'you think the Vulcans are going to be okay with us demanding a ransom for their people? If we go back, they'll put us in jail."

"You didn't consult with me about it," Ngegguk's tone was getting tinged with anger as he realized his sibling may have compromised the deal for all of them.

"Consult with you?" Ngekkom was getting tired of his little brother carrying on. "I don't need to consult with you. I'm the captain. You just do what I tell you."

"Not when you screw things up for all of us," this time Ngegguk was out of his chair, towering over his seated brother. His smaller brother. The realization hit all three men about the same time. Dozem stared open-mouthed with the feeling he was about to watch something momentous happening.

And then Ngegguk had his brother in a hold and was slowly strangling him against the top of the captain's chair. Dozem froze, unable to help or stop either of them. Ngekkom turned navy blue than a violet turquoise as his air supply stayed cut-off, trying in vain to shake his younger yet larger brother off, quickly realizing he may have made a mistake in the way he approached him.

Finally Dozem found the courage to talk. Self-preservation made it that he may not want to spend too much time in tight confines with a murderer. And Ngekkom may be grateful. "Stop!" He rushed Ngegguk, finally succeeded in wrenching him away from Ngekkom. The two brothers breathed hard, one almost passed out on his captain's chair, the other heaving from adrenaline and the effort of almost killing his sibling.

"We're going back," Ngegguk said softly. He gestured with his chin at Dozem. "You heard me, set a course back to Vulcan. We'll explain it to them. Give the money back if we have to." He shot another murderous look at Ngekkom. "Do right by the crew. The deities will reward us a hundred times over."

Ngekkom was on his knees by the captain's chair, retching, one hand over his throat, still trying to regain his breath. He emitted a weak croak. He might have been protesting, or agreeing. In any case Ngegguk paid him no heed.

"I command this ship," he informed Dozem. "Send a message on Vulcan frequency. Tell them Orion transport is on its way back to Vulcan following extraction from Romulan space. Let them know former captain Ngekkom is under arrest," he shot his brother a malevolent look, "that we're ready to exchange him for the rest of our crew. And that we're ready to talk restitution."

xxx

 _ **Trip (in a coma)**_

Trip lounged back in his chair, savoring the feel of the sun on his skin. After so many years on Vulcan, Terra Sol seemed faint indeed. He couldn't stop enjoying being out all day long without the need to keep everything covered. He looked at the surf. The beach must be hundred of yards wide where they were. He was keeping an ear on the sounds of the surf and the children playing nearby. Not that he much to worry about. The good thing with Vulcan children was that water didn't attract them. Actually, it was more of a repellent, and the Human elements in their kids didn't override that.

Still, it was too quiet. Their daughter was so much like her mother, she could become so engrossed in whatever she was examining that she could step in the sea without even realizing it.

"T'Alea!" He called.

"I'm here, Dad!" The voice that answered was long-suffering. A shadow stepped into the sun, looking at him with a fist on her hip, in an obvious 'see, I'm here and nothing's happening' pause. "We are both here, I am in the process of keeping Stefal entertained."

"Good, make sure you don't get lost." He said it on purpose just to get a raise of the one eyebrow, and was thrilled to succeed.

She looked so much like her mother, except for the grey-blue eyes. She actually was so much like her mother, the doctors had inserted Human DNA wherever they could without compromising her vital systems. Which meant that all of the inside pretty much was Vulcan. And the ears. He loved her ears. Almost as delicately pointed as her mother's. He knew that intellectuslly she was a teenager, but developmentally she was his nine-year old daughter, as far as Humans went, and much younger, as far as some aspects of Vulcan physiology went. Which was allright by him, he wouldn't have to worry about her dating until she was... come to think of it, he may never have to worry about it during his lifetime.

He frowned slightly as he realized he didn't know which side of her heritage dominated. Could it be that the Vulcan healer had set this one timetable on the Human curve, possibly as an accommodation to her father? He'd call him when they got back to Vulcan, ask about that.

He thought back to his raunchy teenage years. He'd also need to ask what they did for Stefal. The boy was only two, but he favored him, his ears not as pointed as his sister's, his hair the color of amber. The doctors had refined their technique in the seven years between pon farrs, were able to integrate more of the Human DNA. Still, Stefal was Vulcan inside. It would be a while before they could create a 50/50 offspring. And if Stefal was Vulcan, he had to worry more. Like with T'Alea.

He felt his wife approaching before he could see her. He looked up with a smile. She was walking to him in the sunlight, her face in shadows, the sun behind her giving a halo to her entire body.

"Trip..."

He turned to her with a wide smile. His wife, his two beautiful kids, possibly more to come with the next ponn farr, this was happiness. Right now. He was happy.

"Trip, it's time to come back."

He looked at her in confusion. They'd just gotten to the beach, how could it be time to come back. He turned back to where his parents' house was, but it wasn't there. There was nothing there, just vegetation. He didn't understand. What did she mean it was time to come back? He was home. They were all home. But where was his house?

"Trip!" she called again, this time more urgently. "Come with me," she extended a hand to him.

Oh, all right, he'd do anything to make her happy. He took her hand, surprised at the steel grip. The sun was enveloping both of them in is glow. She leaned over and placed her hands on his head, as if she was going to enter a mind-meld. Why would she do a mind-meld like that, in the middle of the day, on a bright beach? He reflexively put his hands on her face.

And then he was falling, spiraling away, they were falling together, through grey layers of space and time. They landed with a jar.

He opened his eyes. He was in Sickbay, T'Pol bent over him, her fingers on his face, Phlox behind her. They looked relieved, but all he felt was confusion. "What happened?" he asked.

"Your body was healed but your mind was unwilling to come back," T'Pol explained as if she'd just been telling him about the day's weather.

How could she forget so quickly? "Where's T'Alia? And Stefal?" He tried to look past her shoulder into the rest of Sickbay.

T'Pol and Phlox exchanged a glance. He saw from her raised eyebrows and his nonplussed expression that these may be new names to them.

"The children?" he prompted them.

Phlox stepped to the head of the bed, while T'Pol slowly withdrew her fingers from his face, obviously puzzled. "You were in a coma for a long time," Phlox started, then stopped, seeming unsure about what to say next. "It sometimes happens that people in a coma have life-like experiences, very vivid dreams, almost like an alternate reality." The doctor was starting to piece together some of what may have happened during Trip's coma. Patient privacy meant he was unable to mention it. "But none of it was real," he added, he felt his patient needed to hear it.

"None of it was real..." Trip repeated softly. His memories of the children were already disappearing, his time with T'Pol... what was it he had dreamed of exactly? All he knew was that it had been really very nice. It left him with the bittersweet feeling of having lost something important.

"You were in a coma," Phlox repeated, "T'Pol had to come get you."

"The kids?" He looked at her, "us?"

She blinked once. "I sensed your mind right before you woke up. I could hear children but I could not see them. They were part of your dream state."

'Just like that, huh?' Trip looked at her narrowly. There was something she wasn't saying. He grabbed a thought like it was a lifeline. "They were our kids. A boy and a girl. The children we had together." He sensed the relaxation that ran through her, thanked the universe that he'd guessed right, that somehow she thought these were children he'd had with someone else. "Medical progress," he hastened to add.

"It could be that you dreamed of the future," Phlox was picking up on the line of thought. He started rocking back and forth. "This is extremely exciting. Do you remember anything at all from the technology?"

Trip turned to him, "afraid not, Doctor." Actually, the memories were disappearing as rapidly as he could gather them. There had been doctors involved, a chamber which made him feel like blushing. He shook his head. "No, I don't remember anything."

But a voice within him kept repeating what Phlox had said. It could be that he had dreamed of the future. He didn't remember the details, but he knew that he'd been happy. And now he was alive, on Enterprise, his bondmate next to him. He smiled, leaning back against his pillow. If that was the future, he could wait for it. Definitely.


	56. The Forest 56 - The Endings

xxx

 ** _Days Later_**

 ** _Archer_**

"Best wishes for the future, commander." Archer saluted Seagull as he stepped off into the airlock, ready to go back on rotation. Part of him felt guilty that he was sending back only one man and not two, part of him was relieved to finally be rid of the pompous bastard. At least now Admiral Toussaint had a better idea that theirs was a dangerous game, they weren't just gallivanting around the galaxies, this was for keeps.

Still, there had been too many deaths, yet more crew members gone from the roster, future lives cut short. He shook off the burgeoning self-pity. They'd all chosen this, chosen this existence, the danger and the thrill.

Everything was falling back into place. Almost everything. A Vulcan ship would arrive next, pick off the last three Vulcans. Correction, three of the last four Vulcans. One, he was keeping no matter what. That had been relatively easy.

But a captain's work was never done. There was still more to finesse.

xxx

 _ **Spivac**_

"You shall learn nothing from me."

Jivak stared at Spivac, his face a blank mask. The face of the man who presented himself as a healer was also blank as a slate, though his eyes expressed hatred. Once again, Jivak wondered if the man was a Vulcan agent of the Romulans or a Romulan passing himself off as a Vulcan. It would explain the killings. But that was not his to figure out.

"That is of little import. It would have been illogical for the Romulans to share much that was confidential with you."

"If I am of such little importance, why go to the trouble of capturing me?" There was a slight shift in Spiva's face, informing Jivak that the question of Spivac's relative importance was emotionally laden. It meshed with Spivac's recent attempts at trying to undermine Jivac's leadership with the rebels. It seemed the healer was in need of self-aggrandizement. And that he went at it the Romulan way, promotion by assassination.

"It is a matter of principle. You shall respond for the death of Yonakai and countless other Vulcans, the attempted murder of T'Pol, and the deaths of several citizens of Cathruusa. I trust you kept a memory record?"

Spivac uncovered his teeth in a snarl. "I shall respond for their deaths? You benefited from Yonakai's death. And what about the deaths you caused yourself?!"

It was accurate that the deaths of Yonakai then Mashana had elevated Jivak to a leadership position. The irony being that he was V'Shar the whole time. That was not something Spivac could have known. "Whatever deaths I am responsible for were committed in my position as a Vulcan rebel. You killed Vulcan citizens on the order and for consideration of the Romulan Empire. Hence you are both a traitor and a criminal."

Spivac exhaled brusquely, throwing himself at the forcefield, but stopping short just before he made contact. Jivak didn't move, not even an eyebrow. Spivac looked at him with malice. "You pretend to bring me to justice? What justice? Vulcan justice? The ideal of perverts like you? They'll let me go once they realize I killed logically. Isn't that what's most important to you?!"

"What is most important to us is life."

"Pah!" Spivac spat the word. "Yet you didn't hesitate to kill when you had to. I'm not afraid of your courts, I'm not afraid of death."

So Spivac was a Romulan. Only a Romulan would equate the carriage of justice with death. "What is most important to us is life," Jivak repeated. "Your life will not be forfeit." He almost added 'though you may wish it was', but that would have been an emotional reaction.

If Spivac cooperated with the V'Shar interrogators, he would spend a large portion of his life in jail but his mind would be whole. If he didn't... One way or another, the list of his victims would be known.

xxx

 ** _Months Later_**

 ** _Trip_**

"Come in."

Trip stepped in, squared his shoulders, hands behind his back. He had been back on duty for a couple of months now, they'd had lost the interim chief engineer in the attack, Hesse wanted no part of dealing with the brass, and he knew Jonathan was glad to have him back, even if Captain Archer maintained the official party line of 'this was a temporary accommodation due to the loss of life and resulting staffing needs in Engineering'. After all, there was still the small matter of his leaving Enterprise with the Vulcan rebels without knowing T'Pol was on a mission.

Otherwise, life had pretty much fallen back into its normal rhythms, he was back with his engines during the day, with T'Pol at night, they no longer pretended to have separate quarters, except for the fact he was not on the official roster and could not attend officers' meetings. He still was on the fence as to whether that was Jon's idea of a punishment or a reward. And he knew that at some point he would face the music, that there was a Damocles sword hanging over his head about going AWOL and his possible court-martial.

"You wanted to see me, Captain?" he kept his eyes carefully centered on a point above Archer's head. T'Pol and he had talked about the alternatives, what would happen if... She, very rationally, of course, and he, not so much.

"Yes." Archer shot a meaningful glance at Reed. "I've asked Lieutenant Reed here as a witness." Trip nodded towards Reed, swallowing. So this was it.

Archer looked at his computer, visibly reading some official communiqué. "Starfleet Command has heard from Minister T'Pau and the Vulcan Council in your favor." He still couldn't quite decide if that was because of his relationship with T'Pol, the daughter of T'Pau's great friend, because of the regard Soval held for the engineer, or because Jivak had related what took place on Cathruusa. "In light of the services you have rendered the Federation and Vulcan during a secret mission of extreme sensitivity and the manner in which you conducted yourself during and after said mission, you have been awarded a promotion to the rank of Captain."

"'Captain'? But-" Trip was spluttering, this was not at all what he'd expected. Or wanted.

"All the agents on the list have been apprehended. The entire Romulan operation is over," Archer provided as way of an explanation. He shot another look at Reed, cleared his throat, and went back to the screen. "On the matter of the charges levied against you for desertion and sedition," he interrupted with a raised hand Trip's budding protestations, still reading the text, "Starfleet has taken note of the above-mentioned accomplishments and has agreed to drop charges on all counts except for your failure to go to your appointed place of duty. In consideration of which you are hereby reduced to the rank of Commander, to remain at your post as chief engineer of Enterprise."

Finally, Archer smiled. "Congratulations are in order, Commander."

xxx

 _ **Years Later**_

 _ **Soval**_

He was on fire. Everything burned. The world around him, even the stone he was lying on. His eyeballs were burning, leaching flames out of their sockets. His mouth was a tongue of flame trying to vent his mind. He was burning. If he could reach the water he would be safe, he would be saved. He crawled on the ground and still it did not cool him. A last inhuman feat of sheer willpower propelled him to the water. And then he was diving deep, trying to disappear into the pool and stop the burning that drove him to madness.

The fire still smoldered. As soon as he was done, it renewed its assault, driving him to the fountain again, he never wanted to leave. The gentle whisper of water was guiding his aim, he wanted to keen like a newborn, surrounded by water all around. The cycle went on, of burning flames and skin that could only be cooled with the promise of mornings without pain, of desire born of reason and not need.

Finally the flames burned out long enough that he could reclaim his mind. His senses were coming back. The breath of normality was upon his skin. Soval opened his eyes into those of T'Pau. He was still joined to her, it would be days before he could bear not being inside of her. He flexed his fingers, relishing the newfound feeling. Slowly, gently, he traced the contour of her jaw, careful of the bruises left by him.

And it struck him that if she hadn't been there, it might have been an acolyte he woke up with, even T'Agad. A strangled sob escaped him, of gratitude too large to be contained. T'Pau raised an eyebrow at him but they still couldn't speak. It would be days more.

Unnoticed by him, the fire had come back. He was on fire. Everything burned. The world around him was a giant furnace, even the stone he laid on was hot. But water chanted in his mind, the soothing music of a waterfall. He drove himself deeper to escape the inferno, the circle of flames threatening to seize him if he ever left the cool sheath.

xxx

 _ **T'Agad**_

"Here." The guard opened the door. The cell was soothing, the wall tiles imitating the strata of the outside rock.

She knew that brought no relief to the person inside. The warden called upon her only for desperate cases, those who refused to forgive themselves, who found their crimes couldn't be atoned from inside a jail. Some things could never be atoned for. She would forever be an acolyte, never to rise to the priesthood. Over the years she had come to understand and accept what she had done, but she had never forgiven. Actions were immutable, lives lost were forever lost, what had been illogical did not become logical.

She understood Surak, the need to single-handedly move Vulcan to peace, the realization that this was the only way to counterbalance the harm done. She had done great harm, and was still trying to counterbalance it, would always do so. But she was not moving a whole nation, only single katras, and only the few that allowed it.

The guards bowed as she stepped in. The man had been deeply depressed and even the healers had not been able to reach him. He had sown a tragedy, impacting families other than his own, his katra was blemished. And yet he suffered more intensely than many who had done far more. There was no telling how the delicate architecture of one's mind was structured.

"Leave!" The voice was strong. He had been refusing sustenance and intervention, yet there was life still within him.

"I cannot leave until I hear you." She settled herself comfortably in a meditation pose.

"Hear me? There is nothing to hear! Leave me die!" he openly snarled. The presence of another within his isolation space would unnerve him. That was expected. There was always the possibility he would turn on her, the path to aggression had been opened in his mind, easier to find again. Her bondmate did not favor her intervening in that manner, but she could spare no effort to save a life.

"I will leave only when I know the depth of your soul."

"I have no soul," he spat back.

"Neither do I."

The man looked at her in surprise. "You are an acolyte."

"I forsake my soul when I caused the death of others."

That drew a pause. The man eyes her with circumspection. "Acolytes do not kill."

"And yet I did. Would you like to hear my story?"

Silence fell over his refusal to reply. He turned his back to her. She entered the path of light meditation, letting her katra soar and expand in the small room. Neither moved for hours.

Eventually, the man stirred, as she knew he would. The Vulcan mind was ever curious. "Acolytes do not kill," he repeated.

She inclined her head at the invitation to speak. "I am T'Agad, she-who-is-the-wife of Poryk, and this is my story, our story..."

xxx

 _ **Somewhere in the universe**_

Dvovresh gav Jahk walked into the small store in the small outpost on Ligunia, shaking the rain off his coat. This was the armpit of the world, for sure. A minuscule outpost on three dots lost in the middle of the ocean that covered the entire godforsaken planet. Not cold enough to freeze over, not warm enough for the sun to ever shine. Of course he would be so lucky as to have the crystal chute develop a crack just as he was passing by, have to stop and get repairs done in this place. Of all places.

Four weeks already he'd been waiting, and every couple of days the same story. The repairman was almost done but his kid was sick or his wife threatened to leave him, or some other transparent lie to explain why the lazy son-of-a-bitch wasn't done already. At least he'd only forked over half the price of the repairs. Otherwise, he could've kissed his ship good-bye.

"Anything for me?" he asked the sleepy attendant behind the counter. Not that he'd expect much from her, that entire species was the laziest scum he'd ever seen. She proceeded to huff and puff her way to the storage room, leaving a shiny trace of slime behind her.

Dvovresh waited. He'd only shown up ever couple of days for four weeks now, one'd think she'd know whether or not he'd received anything by now. He also knew from experience she'd take at least a half-hour to come back empty-handed. Must be brewing some of that noxious potion they used as a relaxant planet-wide in the back area. He'd come to know the store like a second lair. He let his gaze roam over the dirty walls, the dingy furniture, the basket of old padds in a corner. Come to think of it, he'd never really paid attention to the padds.

He walked over, scrunching his snout in disgust at the dust covering them, daintily picked one up with a split hoof. The padd was still active. Dvovresh looked at the pictures of the two aliens, read the caption, the large "Wanted Alive" angrily sprawled in bold red letters over the pictures. A Human and a Vulcan. He could read Vulcan well enough to understand the caption, they were both traitors to their worlds. The reward for their capture made his eyes bulge. If he caught them alive. Of course, he would, Dvovresh never killed his prey. They'd still be together, his hunter's sense told him so.

He smiled. The gods were looking on him. His fortune would soon be assured. Once he got his skiff repaired. The sun may not be shining outside, but this had just turned into a beautiful day.

xxx

THE END

* * *

 _We're done! Thanks everyone for sticking with this story. It was a blast to write, gave me quite a few sleepless nights. I'm a little sad to be done, but it was time. And there's the possibility of a sequel, obviously :)_

 _A couple of notes, for those who might be interested:_

 _\- I had initially thought of taking the story into yet another entirely new direction, by having Trip's coma be a complete story within a story, but realized that may not work for readers._

 _\- with T'Agad, I was interested in the description of a religious experience, and atonement. All I can say is that I need to read a lot more stories that describe that kind of arc._

 _If you have any other questions, please ask, I'm always happy to answer._


End file.
